Running with the women who run with the wolves

I started reading Women Who Run With the Wolves recently. Sarah just finished it and seemed to get some good ideas. I think it will be fun. Wildish natures, singing over bones, inner predators... Bluebeard. All sorts of things that will help me to feel my feelings and be more myself.

I think this is the first book I've read that is so specifically written for women. So far it makes almost no reference to men or any other gender/sex option. despite being able to see how I could apply some of its lessons to my life, I've felt very excluded while reading it. This makes me think of the vast majority of media that is created by men, and how exclusive it probably seems to anyone with a life experience that is not strictly male/masculine. That makes me think that I'm almost always speaking with the assumption that my experience of life is universal and that anyone can relate to it. And then I feel sad because I'm sure there is a pile of unconscious sexist/racist/capitalist stuff going on in my mind, and I don't want to alienate people or make them feel lonely or irritated when I talk to them. Did that make sense?

So! I'm keen to speak from a more conscious place and examine my assumptions about other people's experience and my own language.

Something else: Sarah and I were joking about something and somehow I got the idea to just imagine that I was a woman while I read. It actually worked pretty well. Made me feel more at home in the book and also reminded me that I don't have to relate to things from a male/masculine point of view and that there are parts of me that get excluded and undeveloped because they don't fit into my male/masculine idea of myself. Which is a bummer.

More on that later. Have to go to work.