BlissFullU

Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that when Deepak Chopra announces one of his free 21 day meditation series, I sign up right away. Health, abundance, grace, peace, whatever the topic, I figure I could use some assistance on growing in that area through meditation.

Last month, Chopra announced his latest meditation series. But when I read the email, my immediate reaction was: “Are you kidding me? NO.” Without thinking, without consideration, that was my gut reaction.

If you don’ t know, the topic he chose for this series is “Activating the Divine Feminine: The Path to Wholeness.” But I was just like––I don’t want to explore activating the Divine Feminine led by a man. Now, he does have Alicia Keys as his partner, which is cool. I like Alicia Keys, and I read that she is committed to meditation. However, I like her as an artist, but I have no idea about her spiritual beliefs. Plus, unless they are totally reinventing the format, she will offer some opening thoughts, but the meditation itself will be led by Chopra. And I’m sorry, but I’m not interested in a man, even a man I respect as I do Chopra, leading me on an exploration of the Divine Feminine.

After acknowledging my initial reaction, I started to process it. Is that being sexist? Or is it being a feminist? Over the past year and a half, I’ve been trying to come to grips with my contribution to white supremacy. But is this a case of male supremacy?

I had to acknowledge that this was kind of an offshoot of a long-standing issue of mine, which is that most of the most successful (in terms of sales and money) books about “parenting” have been written by men, even though we know that most of the heavy lifting in parenting falls to women (MOST––I know families where the man is the “stay at home” or predominant parenting person, and of course there are also gay male families where both parents are male). Chopra is an example of that; after his success of his book The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, he wrote a book called The Seven Spiritual Laws for Parents, which is one of the best-selling books about parenting. It’s a good book; I read it and have used it. But I suspect that the majority of parenting of his children was done by his wife, not by him. How much time did he spend NOT with his children as he wrote this book? The fact that Deepak Chopra, and Steven Covey, and Gary Chapman, and other men make more money writing about parenting than do women just…rubs me the wrong way.

In contrast, I think of Marianne Williamson, who was single mother. So she did all the writing and talking and conferences and retreats and such that all these high-level spiritual leaders do, but without a spouse to pick up the slack when she was working. As far as I know, Marianne Williamson has never written a book about parenting. I’m not saying there is discrimination against female writers on this subject…although maybe there is. I don’t know.

I just feel like I no longer want to read books about parenting from gurus, but from people who have been in the trenches, as it were, as I have. And I’m not called to do a meditation series about the Divine Feminine that is led by a man. I am trying to make it a PRO-female interest in these subjects, rather than an ANTI-male thing. Or maybe it’s just a PRO-primary parent thing abut the parenting issue; I think I would read a parenting book written by the parenting half of a gay male couple. And not just because it is Gay Pride Month, which I totally support, not just this month, but every month.

So is that sexist? Am I missing out? What do you think? I would love to read your opinions about this issue in the comment section below.