I've Kite Surfed Over to a New Spot

You may have noticed that I haven't posted here in a looooonnnnnggggg time! That's partly because I'm trying out a new platform: Medium. Ironically, Medium was started by the same guy who started Blogger: Ev Williams. He also co-founded Twitter, by the way. His idea for Medium, as I understand it, is to create a strong platform for good writing that is not ad driven. I like the Medium platform so far because it seems to make it easier for new readers to find my writing. I don't really know if this is true, but that's the impression I have. The layout looks more like a magazine, corralling many writers onto each page. So I'm experimenting with posting on Medium instead of Blogger and seeing how many people I don't know sign up to follow me. You could be the next one! :p

At the same time, I don't want to abandon this spot, since it has many layers of painstakingly developed links and loops and ways to get in deeper and find my writing. One of my goals for 2019 is to clearly determine how best to use Blogger and Medium and Amazon's self publishing platform and any other sites that present themselves to my thirsty writer's mind!

Meanwhile, if you'd like to see what I've been up to lately, take a hop, skip and a kite surf over here:
https://medium.com/@patsyfergusson

I believe they'll let you read three pieces before they ask you to sign up, so choose carefully if you don't want another account to keep track of! So far, readers have liked "My Christmas in the Woods," "My Tattoo," and "Thank You, Dr. Ford" best.

Here's a pic to amuse you. And here's wishing us all a healthy, happy and connected 2019.

Wanda

From murals at San Francisco's Beach Chalet painted by Lucien Labuadt in 1936.

Wanda was the most magnificent woman

I’ve ever seen

with her

shiny black hair and sparkling brown eyes

strong thighs in tight jeans

striding back and forth

behind the bar

pouring drinks

for the supplicants

who hung on every word

through her

red lipstick lips

in her
wry honey drawl

even telling, perhaps

what she’d cook for dinner:

white beans with a ham hock and

a mess of greens

I loved Wanda at once

but couldn’t fathom how much

till one night she jumped the bar

with a club in her hand

to chase a bad drunk

outside

The sight was so dazzling

I could scarcely comprehend it

She flew over the counter knees tucked

like a gymnast

eyes blazed

like a Fury

arm raised

like a God

For all I could tell

she had holstered the lightning

It was everything I ever wanted to see

in a woman

everything I ever wanted

to be

Another day she rode up

on her 850 Norton

cockless and cocky

in her aviator’s cap

on her way to

a crawfish boil

on Lake Ponchartrain

where she'd show me how to pluck

the delicate white flesh

from the small red tails

and suck the heads

And on the pool table

at Sonny’s

she’d make all her bank shots

pointing to the places she’d hit

before dropping the ball in the pocket

Never choking at the endgame

like me

Challengers would line up

bright quarters on the railing

but Wanda held the table

for as long as she wanted

laying her body on the green felt

squinting one eye as she lined up the shot

sliding the pool cue back and forth
over her fingers

until ‘CRACK!’

She loosed the ball

Wanda was the most magnificent woman

I’d ever seen

and I never understood

why she suffered me gladly

did not find me lacking

all cloaked in my grief

and inadequacy

But we were 20 years old

when I slept on her couch

in the Quarter

and when I went back to California

there were 2,000 miles

between us

and I didn’t return the favor when

a bad marriage

a baby

a car crash

money troubles

came to sleep on her couch

instead

We had a few good phone calls

then a bad call

then nothing

And now I search for Wanda

at nighttime

I scour the web with her name

scanning thousands of images

crammed onto my laptop

and not one of them

is the woman I loved at once

in New Orleans

Not even the one with her face

only 40 years older

sitting on a porch in the Seventh Ward

drinking beer with a friend

in a shabby shift

and scabby legs

after Katrina

After the hurricane destroyed it all

You Are My Spiritual Practice

You close the door in my face
as I stand on the porch
with my basket of gifts
and hear the loud lonely sound of the
bolt clanking into the lock

red leaves fall on the bright green lawn behind me
and white snow falls
and tiny yellow flowers push up through soft brown earth
while I wait and wait and wait and
hope
with my basket of good bread
and money for the vending machines
and new shoes without holes
and fresh white socks

You are my spiritual practice
as you chase me down the front stairs
and out into my car
screaming my faults through the window
as I turn the ignition
You paste yourself on the driver-side door
clutching the roof with two palms
while I drive away
slowly
praying
for you to give up and peel off
unharmed

You are my spiritual practice
as you spy out my sore spots
and poke them with a sharp stick
as you bend my spine to your will
and stretch every tendon taut
until I'm almost snapped in two
and cry out
NO!

You are my spiritual practice
as your blue baby body's aborning
and the kind nurse dabs the blood from my thighs
after
in the darkened room

You are my spiritual practice
when your brown hair full of vaseline and chicken pox
stands stiff in the wind
as you run across Ocean Beach
in the dazzling gray morning
with your siblings chasing after
your wild energy all uncontained

You are my spiritual practice
particularly when
you lock me out
You chase me away
and still

I don't forget you
I do remember me
and all it means
for a mother
to love

On Lemons and Lemonade

I was chagrined when I got kicked out of a San Francisco-themed Facebook group recently.

First, the administrator deleted a lively thread in which people were discussing homelessness in San Francisco. He explained in a private message that he didn't allow discussion of politics in his group. Okay. Understood. I would restrict myself to posting pretty pictures of my favorite city, like the one above.

But I wondered if he knew where I could go instead for the conversation I craved. He provided a name, and I checked it out. The group description began with the question, "Ready to Rumble?"

Well, no. I'm not.

Anyone who's tried to talk politics on the Internet lately has been in a few rumbles, whether they're ready or not. Because political discourse has become a bloodsport in America. But I've never liked the taste of blood.

What I wanted, instead of bloodletting, was a place that people could go in a spirit of cooperation to talk about problems we face in San Francisco and try to come up with solutions. I didn't want to cry, kvetch, insult, accuse. I wanted to discuss. But I couldn't find a good place to do that on Facebook. So I created one. Then I went back to the original group and posted a comment, saying it wasn't appropriate to talk politics there, but people who wanted that type of conversation could talk over here.

Three minutes later, the admin kicked me out.

He said via private message that I was "poaching" his members. He said I'd misbehaved. Here's the thing, though. It's not an either/or decision. You don't have to choose between pretty pictures and politics. You can have both.

It's also not a competition. I don't want the biggest group on Facebook. I don't want the bloodiest group, or the most entertaining. I just want a group of sincere people trying to fix a broken system. So, high on the adrenaline that chagrin provided me, I added everyone I knew who lives in San Francisco to my newly-created group and started posting.

That led me to search out good information for my posts. I called the DA's Office, the Police Department, the Department of Homelessness, and reported on what I learned. I wrote emails to politicians and shared what they replied. I attended a meeting of the Local Homeless Coordinating Board and wrote up a summary. I re-posted Chronicle stories of interest. And I found myself on a new path.

Here's the thing. Since retiring from teaching high school in June, I've been a little bit lost. Don't get me wrong. I love retirement. I love the new way I'm experiencing time, like a gently unfolding ribbon before me, instead of a noose tightening around my neck.

I'm developing a schedule that meets most of my needs: I dance; I write; I lead walking tours; I spend more time with my husband; I meet with friends. But one need isn't met. One itch isn't scratched: the desire to contribute something useful to the world.

But now, it seems, I've stumbled on a way to continue doing that in retirement.

So I guess I should thank the grumpy old fart who kicked me out of his Facebook group and inspired me to take those lemons and mix up some lemonade.

Feeling thirsty? Come share a glass at "San Francisco Politics -- Let's Talk."

My Little Tree

It was Jan. 24 and I had this little Christmas tree, a living thing, that I didn't know what to do with. Surely someone would have an answer for me. Every year, people buy living trees and take care of them for a month or two--decorating, watering,  placing in a window by the light. But when the season is over, what then? What is the follow-up plan?

I saw piles of big Christmas trees discarded on street corners. But those weren't in pots. They were brittle, dead things, waiting to be taken away and recycled. My guy didn't belong with them. He was fresh and green, fragrant, thirsty for water, and hungry for the sun.

I looked out my window, surveying the possibilities in my vicinity. I live on the third floor and don't have a yard. The green I can see from here is all fenced in. Should I hop a fence in the dark of night with my tree and a trowel? The idea was appealing. But I'm 62; fence hopping could be catastrophic.

Should I knock on doors, ask if anyone wants to adopt my little guy? The chance of success seemed non-existent.

I googled "what to do with a living Christmas tree." There weren't any answers beyond planting him in my non-existent yard. I asked the public on Facebook. Same. I called Friends of the Urban Forest. Did they have any advice? Nope. Would they take my tree as a donation? Afraid not. The advertising flyer from Cole Hardware advised, "Your Christmas tree should be in the ground by now." I know. I know!

So I went rogue. I'd read of a campground in the Presidio where Native Americans do an earth healing ceremony each year. Perhaps I could do my own little bit of earth healing? It had recently rained. The soil would be soft. I loaded the tree and a trowel into my car.

When I turned off busy Lincoln Blvd. onto the side road that led to the campground, it wasn't as deserted as I'd hoped. An older couple sat on a bench. They eyed me suspiciously as I parked as far away from them as I could get, and continued to peer at me as I got out of the car and went around to the passenger side to retrieve the tree. I had it hoisted under one arm and was starting up some log steps carved into the mud when a big white ranger truck rumbled up the road. I slipped the red wrapping paper off the pot so it wouldn't be visible, put it down on the ground, and continued on my own to scout a good spot.

And I found one. In fact, I found many good places where my tree would be happy--would thrive. I wanted to plant him tenderly, whispering sweet nothings, and come back to visit him each year, marveling at how big he'd grown. I knew he'd enjoy the wide open space, fecund earth, and fresh ocean air. But the big, white truck was now up at the restrooms, directly in my line of sight. The ranger wasn't going anywhere. In fact, he seemed to be keeping an eye on me. So I approached.

Would it be okay if I planted my little Christmas tree here?

No. Sorry. No planting allowed. They often take out trees, he said, to clear an area. There's a master plan. New plants have to be native. Some areas even have a soil disease. My tree might not be safe. And by the way, the campground is closed. He was just up here to check on the goats, and make sure homeless people weren't moving in. Perhaps I could contact the Parks and Recreation Department? They have a nursery.

Then I remembered one day when I was bicycling through Golden Gate Park with Ace, how we'd stumbled on some big, white tents full of potted plants, with half a dozen young botanists entering and exiting, laughing together, slapping the dirt off their big gardener gloves. I thought it was behind the Carousel.

So I drove out there, and found a nursery, though not the one I'd remembered. This one was huge, behind a chain link fence, with hundreds of potted plants lined up on pallets. Two people in yellow vests were driving forklifts in the distance. Others were bustling under a far canopy (was this the back side of the place I'd seen?). Another lot to one side was full of big work trucks and guarded by a man at a turnstile, but the narrow lane to the nursery was open. No one was near.

I snuck in, put my little guy down on an empty pallet, and scurried off before anyone could shout at me to stop. It wasn't as satisfying as planting him in the ground, but in the nursery, at least, he was among other plants, in the care of plant lovers. I hoped one of them would find a place for him. I thought he had a chance.

That's the way life works sometimes. Like with my adult son, who is locked in a psychiatric facility and not talking to me--not talking to any of us who love him. I don't get to know how he's doing. I don't get to hear his voice, see his face. I don't get to set him up somewhere that I know he will thrive. I can't find that place. I have no idea where it is.

All I can do is release him and hope the experts will save him--will help him sink roots in some patch of good ground. Is mother's love a nutrient? Is there any magic in my dreams? Because I see him growing tall in a forest of redwoods, fragrant, thirsty. After 13 years of chaos, I still see him basking and stretching, hungry for the sun.

Sally's Wedding

I've heard people say that going on Facebook depresses them. They see other people's happy lives and exotic travels and wonder if their own measure up. I don't usually have that experience, though. I like to live vicariously through my Facebook friends, seeing faraway places and "doing" exotic things I don’t have the time or brio to get around to on my own.

But it was different yesterday, when I found myself pouring over pictures of Sally's wedding. There was a video clip of her father walking her down the "aisle" -- a dirt path in a vineyard in Sonoma County -- that I played four times before unhappiness overwhelmed.

Was it jealousy? Not exactly. You see, Sally used to be in love with my son.

I have a picture of the two of them going to prom. She wears a long black dress with big white polka dots and long white gloves. He's wearing a suit jacket and slacks. They pose in front of a backdrop of Paris. He has a red lipstick kiss on his cheek. She holds her fingers up in front of her mouth, miming "Oh!" His hands are around her slender waist as he leans back and flirts with the camera, vamping right along with her. Compliantly playing his role.

It's exactly the kind of photo Sally would compose: charming, funny, and planned down to the last detail. Some attendees at her wedding took pictures of their place settings. Each one was unique. She wrote the name cards by hand and adorned them with photos she’d chosen to be personally relevant to each guest. Sally is the Scrapbooking Queen. She is the Anti-chaos.

Her love for Scott was a puppy love, sure, but I remember it fondly. Because back then, we had all kinds of hopes for our son. He'd been hard to raise: stubborn and defiant, but also smart and handsome and often charming, awake to possibilities in the world around him, intensely alive. We hoped that growing older would smooth out his rough edges. We worried that it would not.

Because mental illness runs in my family, and sometimes Scott’s behavior felt too familiar for comfort. My father was bipolar. Two cousins on my mom's side--the same. An uncle died of alcohol. And there was a long stretch of time when I had panic attacks.

I remember lying in bed one afternoon when Sally's mom came over to loan me some self-help tapes. We talked of Sally and Scott's budding romance, and I admitted I was worried that something was wrong with my son. Less than year later, at age 18, Scott had his first psychotic break. And over the next 12 years, he's taken us on a hell ride.

While Sally was vowing to love and cherish her sweet man in a creamy bridal dress on a bucolic farm in Sonoma, my son was struggling with security guards at a psychiatric hospital, breaking a window and getting a black eye in the course of refusing antipsychotic medication.

Today, he isn't speaking to me. He asked me to show up at a hearing at the hospital to tell the administration that he can take care of himself. But I didn't, because he can't.

Besides having schizoaffective disorder, Scott uses alcohol, marijuana, and crystal meth. I want him to stop, but I also sympathize. Perhaps if I were homeless, without a place to pee, or sleep safely, or even sit down, and unable to separate delusion from reality--enemies from friends--I might use drugs, too. I might want some relief.

Trying to get help for him has been Kafkaesque. There are laws that protect his "right" to be mentally ill, allowing him to refuse medication and treatment and walk out of a hospital at any time, despite the fact that a common symptom of mental illness is not knowing that you're mentally ill.

We’ve called the police to our home more than once, asking for help getting Scott to a hospital, only to be told that carrying his pee around in a bottle in his pocket, hiding in the cramped crawl space over the garage, or ranting non-stop for four hours straight is "not a danger to himself or others," so doesn't meet the legal requirement for them to take him into custody against his will.

Even when we do manage to get him hospitalized, they don’t keep him long enough to make a difference. Three days is typical. Rarely, that’s extended to 10. All across America, we've lost 96 percent of the psychiatric beds we had back in the '50's, so hospital personnel keep their psych patients churning, to make room for the next person in line.

You might think a person like Scott is his family’s problem, not the government’s. And we’ve tried to help him. Believe me, we’ve tried. When living together became untenable, we lined up a room in a hotel in North Beach where he antagonized the manager, threatening lawsuits because he wasn’t allowed to bring in random homeless people to sleep on the floor in his room. When we bought him a small trailer in Belmont, he ripped out the built-in furniture and used it to create “artwork” in his driveway. His toilet got clogged, so he shoveled the shit into his shower. Then big, burly meth users moved in. He was lying in a puddle of glass on the floor of that trailer, beaten bloody and semi-conscious, when he called to tell me, “Mom, I’m afraid I’m trying to get myself killed.”

Scott's been homeless. Dirty. Pathetic. Aggressive. Beaten up. Broken. Afraid. We used to let him come into our house to use the shower or toilet, spend a night on the couch, or share a meal, even though sometimes he’d start yelling and refuse to stop or leave. But two years ago, his dad had a heart attack, followed by triple bypass surgery, while Scott was yelling at me in another room. So I don't let him into the house anymore. I meet him at a park, or a restaurant. I visit him in the hospital, or jail.

Even with our unflinching support, Scott hasn’t been able to put any kind of life together in the 12 years since that first psychotic break. He doesn’t cooperate with doctors, or take his medication as prescribed. He opposes efforts to help him, and doesn’t see what his stubbornness costs. One time he let two muggers beat him senseless rather than hand over $20 clutched tightly in his fist. That’s emblematic of his illness. He’d rather die than submit to authority. But I’m not ready. I’m not ready to let my son die.

The period when we saw most improvement in Scott was the year when he was conserved, meaning a public guardian made Scott’s decisions for him, requiring him to take medication and stay in a locked psychiatric hospital where he got therapy and got off street drugs. He was friendly when I came to visit. He made a friend, participated in groups. And his father, sister, brother and I hoped that one day he’d be able to live among us, work in our family cafe, come to Christmas again.

Then a judge who’d seen him for five minutes decided he was no longer severely disabled and released him back onto the street.

The judge was wrong. Scott needs what every floridly psychotic person you see on the street needs: to be taken into custody and given medication--whether they want it or not. To be given a safe place to sleep, a hot shower, food, therapy. To be coaxed back to reality with kindness and medical intervention.

In my job giving walking tours of San Francisco, I talk to people from all over the world. A recent tourist from Israel said he wouldn't be coming back anytime soon because when he got up early one morning and walked down Market Street, he saw mentally ill homeless people everywhere he looked, stepped around junkies on the sidewalk shooting up heroin, smelled feces and urine on the street.

“Why aren’t you taking care of these people?” he asked me.

I said we were trying.

He said not hard enough.

And that’s the question I’ve been asking myself ever since: why aren’t we taking care of these people?

Our current mental health treatment system is brutal, misguided, and inhumane. Back in the day, people with a major mental illness could live in an asylum while getting treatment. Then asylums were closed for “humanitarian” reasons. But it’s not humane to put a person with a major mental illness out on the street and say, “You’re on your own.”

But that’s what we’re doing, day after day. The result is upsetting, dangerous, and expensive. And everybody is paying the price: the people who are mentally ill and abandoned because they are too hard to deal with; their families who are stressed beyond endurance trying to figure out what to do next; and people everywhere who have to walk by, turn their heads, harden their hearts and pretend they don't see the wounded people on the street and the filth they leave, including garbage, used needles and human waste.

Those old asylums need to be reopened. New group homes need to be built. Scott wouldn’t agree. He’d rather be set loose to use meth, get beaten up, freeze, starve, hallucinate and cause trouble everywhere he goes. He's called more than once to say he fucking hates me. He's called me a bitch.

But that’s Scott’s illness talking. That’s not my son. And I won't give up on him. I will never give up. I still remember who he was before he became psychotic. I remember how handsome he looked in that suit jacket on prom night 12 years ago, and I believe he can do better. Much better.

That's why I cried when I saw the pictures of Sally's wedding. That’s why I’m still crying now. It’s not that I wish he had married Sally. I grieve because the kind of sweet, stable life that Sally represents is no longer an option for my son.

But it could be. I believe it still could be. If only our nation would wake up and take care of these people.

Why aren’t we taking care of them?

Feeling Grateful and Hopeful for 2018

2017 has brought me much anxiety. When President Trump was elected, I flew out to participate in the Women's March on DC. Since then, I've periodically interacted with Trump supporters on Twitter and Facebook, arguing over issues like climate change, reproductive rights, the criminal justice system, and immigration. The exchanges are often brutal, with opponents calling me stupid and worse. It's hard to articulate how fractious our country is in December of 2017. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by the acrimony. These conversations make me feel dirty and hopeless.

But then I stop. I look around. I remember. 

I'm living in the most beautiful place I've ever inhabited. After having a heart attack in 2015, my husband is alive and well and still loves me 34 years into our marriage. Two of our three adult children are happy and healthy. The third is in a hospital where he might get some help, where he's safe and warm and housed and fed.

Could it be God has a plan for me? Probably not. But if I turn off the incessant chatter of "doomsday!" called out by the media and populace on both sides of the divide, I can see that things are as they've always been--beautiful beyond reckoning, chaotic, loud, tragic, and intermittently strewn with exquisite, almost unbearable gifts.

I'm Ready to Cook

I last posted on this blog two-and-a-half years ago, on June 3, 2015. But please don't think I abandoned you. I would never do that! For many reasons, posting here became too much for me: my son with a chronic mental illness fathered my first grandchild; my husband had a heart attack and triple bypass surgery; I decided to retire after 17 years of teaching high school; and, I couldn't quite put my finger on exactly what I wanted to do in this space.

So I retreated, turned inward, and began to ferment, like this beautiful bubbling bowl of sourdough starter on my kitchen counter. (That's another thing that happened. I took up baking sourdough bread.)

And then this morning, after visiting SFMOMA two nights ago and getting inspired by the photography of Walker Evans, after finding myself wanting to document the world around me in gorgeous photographs as he did, after taking multiple photos in my SF ramblings over the past two days, after posting a few on Facebook and finding the experience less than satisfying, I remembered: I have a blog! I can post my photos here. And I can talk in depth about all the things that have been occupying my mind for the past 2.5 years, all the things that seem too weighty and complex, too intimate and disturbing for a FB post.

So I came back, and found this wonderfully constructed site, representing many hours of my labor, waiting for me.

When I first pulled it up this morning, I had two loaves of sourdough in the oven. Now, I've just taken them out. If I could describe to you how good they smell, you wouldn't believe me. The tiny crackling sounds their crusts make as they are cooling is exquisite, and is moving me, as everything seems to move me lately, as we come to the end of this dark year of deep disappointment.

Here's hoping this new iteration of my blog turns out to be as delicious and satisfying as my bread. Because I'm done fermenting. I'm ready to cook.

Summer is Here!

And I'm excited to have time to spend writing my young adult novel; to have time to spend as the spirit moves me; to have time to spend, period.

Time.

*Deep sigh of satisfaction.

I've been doing some research on the female hero, and it's giving me ideas for my girl, Trilby. Here's a summary I wrote of a book I read that impressed me. Such good food for thought. Does it nourish you?

---

The female hero’s journey differs from the male’s in a number of ways. “Patriarchal society views women essentially as supporting characters in the drama of life. Men change the world, and women help them,” note Carol Pearson and Katherine Pope in The Female Hero in American and British Literature (vii).

This view is perpetuated in most of today’s media. Cartoonist and writer Alison Bechdel created the Bechdel Test to analyze movies according to how women are portrayed. The vast majority do not pass her simple three-point test: 1) There are at least two female characters, 2) who talk to each other, 3) about something other than a man.

It was scholar Joseph Campbell who originally identified a pattern he called “the hero’s journey” which appears in myths and stories across cultures and ages. This pattern can be broken into three broad stages: the Call, the Quest, and the Return. After analyzing hundreds of works of classic and popular fiction in the Western canon, Pope and Pearson identified ways this pattern differs for women and men.

The first stage is the Call, when the hero is summoned to go on the quest and begin her adventure. This stage is often more difficult for women, who may be leaving a protected environment controlled by people she loves, such as parents or a husband. While the male hero slays “dragons” or overcomes obstacles on the quest itself, “the first task of the female hero is to slay the dragon within,” to recognize that she has the heroic traits necessary to undertake a quest. (viii)

What are those “dragons within?” The authors identify four myths which socialize women to be passive receptors rather than dynamic actors in their lives: 1) the myth of female inferiority 2) the myth of virginity 3) the myth of romantic love, and 4) the myth of maternal sacrifice. Perhaps, in the United States in the 21^st Century, the first myth can be discarded as unsupportable. But what is wrong with the other three? The flaw in these still-popular feminine ideals is that they value women only in relation to other people. Rather than encouraging women to be the “subject” of their own heroic journeys, they teach women to be the “object” in another person’s story.

This does not mean that it is wrong to be a virgin, to love another person, or to make sacrifices for children, but that when women are cast entirely in the “helper” or “complementary” role, it prevents full development of their individual character.

The second stage of the journey is The Quest, and this, too, differs for men and women. While the traditional male hero succeeds by overpowering his enemies, women master their world by “understanding it, not by dominating, controlling, or owning” it. (5) Many modern male heroes also reject the traditional “masculine” model which calls for the hero to win by demonstrating superiority over others. But rather than adopt a more “feminine” and egalitarian world view, they become alienated and unhappy “antiheroes.”

Pope and Pearson point out that minorities, the poor, the disabled, and other people whose power is limited in modern American society will relate more to the female’s journey than the male’s. This is bourn out in analysis of the “tragic hero” pattern. “It is axiomatic that the tragic hero falls from power because of hubris. An excess of pride is a characteristic of those bred to have power and accordingly to believe in their superiority. The white male tragic hero experiences a tragic fall when his inflated ego encounters experience,” the authors write. But  “the destruction of the oppressed more often occurs because they accept the role of victim.” (10)

Pope and Pearson blame strictly-defined gender roles for the failure of both men and women to achieve their full human potential. “The tendency to see men and women as inherently opposite—as respective embodiments of head and heart, conscious and unconscious, adventurousness and nurturance, aggression and passivity—has led each sex to denigrate the other because it represents the negative half of all human characteristics.” (19)

Many classic works contain scenes in which men are tempted by a “seductress” who is “a projection of the attributes he identifies as female but cannot internalize in a positive form.” (19) Likewise, women may face a “seducer” who “ultimately betrays her as a result of destructive myths governing male behavior. He may ‘seduce and abandon’ the hero in accordance with the myth that men are predators who demonstrate their virility by ‘ruining’ virtuous and attractive women. He may limit her freedom because he believes his masculinity depends on controlling a submissive and loving woman. Or, as in the case of Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter, he may lack the courage” to face the consequences of his behavior and be “reluctant to lose male patriarchal status and power.” (144)

In the Return stage of the journey, heroes typically bring a gift back to their community. For women, this gift may be the realization her true, heroic character. Although her journey leads to development of her potential, that potential varies widely according to the time period in which the book was written and the author’s bias; in many classic works of literature (Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, Daisy Miller by Henry James, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman), the best a female hero can do is to die or go insane rather than conform to stereotypes which limit and diminish her.

A more positive outcome is possible when all people integrate the varied aspects of human experience--both masculine and feminine--into one healthy whole.  “Both male and female heroes begin the quest for wholeness and selfhood by risking the violation of conventional norms, including conventions about appropriate sex-role behavior; both learn not to manipulate and restrain other people; and both reach accommodation with the best qualities associated with men and with women, integrating strength with humility, independence with empathy, rationality with intuition, and thought with emotion.” (15)