women and through independence by conquest and the exercise of power over others in the case of men. The male oriented social structure of dominance has been a result of valuing of independence and conquest rather than interdependence, which is a priority for women (Irigaray, 1993). The neutral individual depicted in philosophy or in the desexualized language of non-sexism thus still remains an expression of male identity in a society in which women’s way of being in the world is not fully acknowledged.
Occupational therapists and occupational scientists are members of a professional and academic community composed predominantly of women. For the profession of occupational therapy to recognize a critical notion of meaning, the influence of its strongly gendered constituency has to be addressed. As Frank (1992) noted in her exploration of the feminist history of occupational therapy, while women have felt empowered in the profession, they have also maintained a narrow cultural base represented by white middle class women’s perspective, a group whose expression of meaning may reflect a certain degree of class privilege. The profession has had to struggle for its objectives and resources in the male ordered hegemonies of health care (Pollard & Walsh, 2000). However, in order to survive it has to engage with clients in a diverse society which presents a wider range of cultural meanings and understandings of occupation (Sakellariou & Pollard, 2008). While occupational therapy practice is supposed to focus on clients’ needs, its feminine cultural perspective may not reflect the lived experiences of males with disabilities (Block et al, 2012; Sakellariou & Pollard, 2012), whose needs (in the areas of productivity, self-care, social participation, intimacy, etc.) are different from those of female clients. Occupational therapists have to attract and support the development of a much wider professional membership, and a great variety of tools and approaches to work equally and holistically with all clients. As a source of underpinning theory and evidence for occupation, occupational science has a similar task of investigating the diverse phenomena of meaning in doing.
According to Peterson (2000), there are three levels of meaning:
1. meaning of the determined world which arises out of the human tendency to simplify reality so that it can be comprehended;
2. meaning related to novelty, which comes out of fulfillment of human curiosity and need to explore; and
3. meaning arising out of the interaction between determined world and satisfaction of curiosity and need to explore, which is one of the factors involved in comprehending determined world to enhance human survival.
Meaningfulness as a function of one’s relationship with God, soul, or both
In Diane’s account at the beginning of the book, she placed a great deal of importance on religious interpretations of life meaning. As mentioned earlier, most human cultures maintain a significant concern with spiritual activities carried out by individuals. Many people perceive meaning to be connected to a relationship with a higher power such as God [also referred to as ‘God-centered meaning’] or to one’s soul [also referred to as ‘soul-centered meaning’] (Metz, 2007). The God-centered view is based on the notion that meaning results from fulfilling God’s purpose or working within God’s plan for the universe. Gordon (1983) argued that God endows us with meaning in the same way that artists breathe meaning into their creations. Indeed adherents of most religions suggest that their gods were directly involved in the creation of the world. It follows that for people holding such beliefs, God is necessary for meaning because in their perception, individual human lives are finite and therefore cannot be meaningful by themselves (Nozick, 1989, 1981).
In most Western traditions, finiteness (or mortality) denotes imperfection, a state which lacks meaning, and therefore, in many religious systems doing good deeds is considered a public responsibility, a way of striving for the perfection of immortality in heaven. God’s perfection and the extended notion of this perfection to heaven are infinite sources of meaning to humans’ finite lives. Christians often presume that by living well they can attain perfection in an afterlife through admission into heaven, although they cannot assume perfection in their finite lives. Thus there is a distinction between what is cosmically meaningful because it is infinite and what is fleetingly meaningful because it is finite.
In some Judeo Christian and Islamic perspectives, perfection is a state that is beyond human comprehension; there can be no attribution of human values to God, since God is beyond human understanding (Jones, 1984). In Buddhism, nirvana is a state of perfection through enlightenment, i.e. a state of understanding that should eventually lead to loss of separate individuality and spiritual merging with a primordial consciousness. In this system of thought, perfection occurs by relinquishing aspects of the self in order to attain enlightenment by merging with the ultimate cosmic consciousness (Suzuki, 1969; Trungpa, 1973)
In many religions, human lives are understood to be equally meaningful because they derive their meaning from God or a primordial consciousness. Never the less, as Dorling (2011, p. 2) illustrates, the reality is that religious teaching has little impact on people’s sensibilities about ‘elitism, exclusion, prejudice, greed and despair’, the ‘five beliefs’, which produce victims who can be categorized as ‘the delinquents, the debarred, the discarded, the debtors and the depressed’. Religions have often taught that these conditions are the results of sin, or constitute a temporary period of suffering. While this teaching may have the function of encouraging resiliency through hope, it may also serve to sustain the status quo and preserve order in society by encouraging people to accept and bear suffering without complaining, as a necessary condition of their lot. Consequently the beliefs of the powerful have often been endorsed by religion while social criticism and negotiation by the disenfranchised for better conditions have been constrained by religious teachings (King, 2000; Rowland, 1988). Though at times a strong sense of spirituality has been a force in support of challenge to the status quo, religious ideas have instead for the most part acted as a brake to progressive social change and instead become a force for conservatism (Jones, 1984; King, 2000; Luthuli, 1963; Mandela, 1994; Rowland 1988; Torres, 1973). In some societies, as McFarland and Matthews (2005) found in their study, the characteristic of holding religious values appeared to be associated with less regard for human rights. The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals, the ordination of women, and the recognition of past abuses in religious institutions are significant issues with which elements of the established churches have had to reconcile themselves during the early part of the 21st century.
It is also noteworthy that various religious systems hold different beliefs and values which affect the life meanings which may be associated with them. For example, Buddhism is a practice or belief system that might outwardly be described as a religion, but most Buddhists may be unconcerned with such definitions which would stand in the way of seeking truth by generating divisions between people. Because of this principle of tolerance, it follows that Buddhists may be able to live meaningful lives side by side with people holding a diversity of beliefs. It might be desirable for religions to be similarly flexible in their outlook towards others with the realization that there is a plurality of possibilities by which life meaning and purpose can be experienced, and one view, including a religious one, does not monopolize the notion of meaning in life. However, many of the Buddhist scriptures identify episodes of violence arising from disputes between different followers, and war and violence persists where Buddhism dominates amongst other religious identities in societies such as Sri Lanka. The cause of these conflicts, according to Buddhist belief, is usually human sensual desires and material greed, but the reality may involve many factors including nationalism and cultural conflict (Degalle, 2006). In other words, whatever spiritual aspirations people may have, their everyday lives are grounded in material issues which may weigh down on their ideals. If we strive to do, be, become, and belong through meaningful occupational engagement (Wilcock, 2006), then some of the conditions that make human occupations meaningful and purposeful may include negative as well as positive possibilities of what we can become; unwelcome experiences may give rise to good outcomes, and vice versa. In the end, for humanity to have a chance of living meaningful lives, there must be a conceptualization
