Group 2

I was hoping to remember my dreams this morning, but I was not expecting such a heated moment in a corporate board room. The glass-walled conference room hosted a large oval cherrywood table. Each rolling chair was seated with suits – mostly men, mostly white, one black man, one other white woman who sat two chairs down from me. I sat at the curved end of the table opposite the door near a whiteboard. The man speaking at the other end of the table seemed so far away that he was a hazy image on the horizon. I had to squint to focus his figure. As he preached and spoke from a published case study, or some sort of scientific journal, if you will, he read aloud, “Blah blah blah, and this and that needs to be done, and we’re looking at this and Group 2 blah, blah blah, in comparison to Group 1, yadda, yadda, Group 2 will…” I slammed my fist on the table, stood up and shouted, “I’m tired of being ‘Group 2’!” The lady and I met eyes. Hers wide in surprise. “Your ‘Group 2” is women. Woman. Female,” with emphasis. “’Group 1’ is Man. Men. Male, not hierarchy ‘one.’” A bit of snark in there I admit. “You need to stop going on and on with the labeling and separating and projecting a higher, authoritative rank. The groups are only defined by man or woman, not by a number to postulate one is better than the other. I am in the “Woman Group,” (air quotes here). “You are in the “Man Group. And that’s the only difference. Get it straight.”

Okay, Shawna. So, what do we have here to unpack??! Is this about men making decision for women? Certainly possible. Is this about men being the ones to speak on intellectual topics? I’d add a nod to that. Am I telling myself to speak up? Oh yeah, that’s gotta be written on the newsprint as well. We could simply say “It’s answer D, all of the above!” Hmm. I will noodle on this a bit. It’s an interesting one for sure. Especially since I was hoping to dream of something a bit more floral.

Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist, Carl Jung, believed that dreams reveal more than they conceal. That they are a natural expression of our imagination and use the most forthright language possible. Jung theorized that dreams are doing the work of integrating our conscious and unconscious lives.*

“We also live in our dreams; we do not live only by day. Sometimes we accomplish our greatest deeds in dreams.”

Carl Jung, The Red Book

I guess I did some good work last night.

*dreamstudies.org