About masculinity and femininity

There is a lot of chaos in the world right now. Entire continents are out of balance. Countries, governments, local authorities, families…. You can’t open a news site, newspaper or social media without hearing about wars, quarrels and excesses. We seem all in chaos….. or out of balance, that’s clear. In other words: we have all lost our balanced path of life. Chaos all around…

And allthough I am really saddened by the misery this chaos brings to many people, there is also a part of me that is happy. This chaos we are in is needed to rebalance the world again. In this blog I explain why.

Inner management team

Anyone who reads my blogs more often will recognize it: every person, anywhere on earth, consists of an untold number of archetypes from the inside. Primal forms, or perhaps better said: primal energies that carry our pure characteristics.

All these archetypes are active at the same time, but not every archetype is equally dominant. Every person has a smaller set of dominant archetypes. I call that ‘your archetypal management team’. Usually this consists of the 8 to 12 dominant archetypes. Would you like to know more about archetypes and how you can connect to them? Then read my blog on ‘How to connect to your inner Wisdom‘ or ‘Doing business in disruptive times’.

Masculine, Feminine and Non-binary in one

These countless archetypes can be roughly divided into three groups: masculine, feminine and non-binary archetypes. To be clear: this has nothing to do with gender. This applies to every person. We are all masculine, feminine and non-binary in one. Our gender is completely separate from that.

So every person has a masculine, a feminine and a non-binary side, within which different archetypes are active. These different sides with their different archetypes influence us in who we are and in what choices we make, both in the short and long term, so in what we do.

Our masculine side harbors archetypes, such as the King, the Warrior, the Accountant, the Merchant or the Sun, to name a few well-known archetypes. They represent primal characteristics of us, such as goal-orientedness, profit, logic, being able to do things independently, consciousness and being extroverted and visible.

Our feminine side houses archetypes, such as the Queen, the Nurse, the Caregiver, the Mother, the Cave, or the Moon. These archetypes represent primal characteristics such as caring for others, being curious, the community, security, subconsciousness, introverted and subservient, working together.

Our non-binary side contains the more abstract, non– or double-sided archetypes, such as the Child, the Forest, the House, the Key. Often these types of archetypes represent characteristics of places or things, such as playing, being lost, transforming, protecting.

As mentioned, every person has both masculine, feminine and non-binary traits in them. This is fundamentally different from characteristics of men or women. We all have all the qualities within us to live a balanced life.

But that’s easier said than done.

Patriarchal world

We live in a patriarchal world. A world in which masculine traits, such as being goal-oriented and extroverted, achieving growth and profit, logic and reason, analytical and individualistic, are more valued than feminine traits, such as being curious and introverted, providing community, feeling and intuition, spontaneity.

Because of this patriarchal pressure from outside, which we all maintain, we increasingly start to listen to that inner masculine side and neglect our inner feminine and often also our inner non-binary side. Although this last side is really a story in itself, which I will leave out of the equation here for the sake of convenience (a typical non-binary characteristic, by the way 😉 ).

Our feminine side has been neglected

For a long time – and I’m talking about thousands of years, probably from the moment the Greeks were in charge in the Western world – we, as adult people, have all neglected our feminine side in the world. Children who ask curious questions are reprimanded. From an early age, the playing of children must increasingly serve logic and the development of reason, so that the natural benefits of play, such as stimulating creativity (feminine) and relaxing (non-binary) are increasingly lost as children become adults. Introverted young people are taught that they should speak out more, take their stage and stand in the spotlight, because only then will they be successful in this society.

Our definition of ‘being successful’ is based entirely on masculine traits. If you don’t show it or don’t show it enough, because you listen more to your feminine or non-binary side in certain situations, then you are not successful, according to most people in the world.

In other words, our definition of what success is, is completely out of balance and urgently needs to be revalued.

Chaos

That the world is in imbalance is therefore the logical consequence of the fact that we have ignored and undervalued an important part of ourselves for centuries. Since the industrial revolution, this imbalance has been further strengthened, because we have once again designed our education, especially in the Western world, mainly based on masculine norms and values.

Unfortunately, entire generations were and still are raised with the purely masculine glasses with which they determine their norms and values. These same purely masculine glasses also caused that their personal identity was formed one-sidedly either.

The chaos that we now see emerging both on an individual level and within communities is a direct result of this purely patriarchal view of our society. Nature always wants to be in balance and if that balance is not there, chaos arises in order to create a new balance from there.

That is the process we are all in now. We see a number of extremely masculine excesses emerging, but I also encounter purely feminine excesses more and more. The latter do wonderful things, or want to do that, but are completely invisible and therefore worthless to the community. Unfortunately, the first ones need no explanation. They are purely harmful to the community due to their extremity. Often literally, as in the wars that are raging in various places.

The bad news is that we have to get through this chaos together. In this chaos, we are collectively able to let go of what is very deeply rooted in us: our one-sided masculine view of society. Mind you: This is about the ‘one-sided’ and not about  the masculinity!

Chaos represents the disorder that is needed to make room for a new order. An order in which there is a new balance, both in ourselves and in the world around us.

Heading of a New Balance

This new balance looks simple on paper: a balance between our masculine and feminine sides. And yes, let’s take our non-binary side with us right away  😉.

But in practice, this is not so easy to implement. Precisely because of our deep-rooted beliefs about what is successful and what is not. Precisely because of our deep-rooted beliefs about how we should behave. Precisely because of our deep-rooted focus on reason and consciousness, while in order to create this new balance we must also focus on the wisdom in our subconscious undercurrent.

The tricky thing is that this wisdom is often completely contradictory to our logic. And then it comes down to trust, curiosity, non-judgment, daring to go into the unknown and daring to go into the darkness… And let all these be precisely those female qualities that we still undervalue so much at the moment.

And so humanity seems to be stuck in a paradox, but fortunately Nature is stronger. Whether we like it or not, chaos ensues. Chaos that turns things upside down. Chaos that causes a lot of misery. Chaos that will destroy a lot of life… And let that also be a typical female trait…

The new balance will be there in the future. The archetypes active will take care of that. The archetypes that are grouped on our feminine side will stand up and overcome. But we make it a lot easier for ourselves if we dare to trust our feminine side a little more and act on that in our behaviour.

To be continued…

StoryDynamic
Frédérique te Dorsthorst – de Muij
December 2024