Critical Thinking: Is The Feminine Seen As Being Inferior To The Masculine In Today’s World?

In most, if not all societies around the world there is typically a focus on the doing, so taking action and getting things done. As a result of this, the other side of this, the being, is rarely given much consideration.

It is often as though the only thing that matters is achieving things and becoming more successful, at least in the material sense. If then, someone spends a lot of time doing things and they are becoming more ‘successful’ in the process, they can be seen as living in the right way by a lot of people.

A Different Experience

On the other hand, if someone’s life doesn’t revolve around the need to achieve and be more successful, they can be seen as living in the wrong way by a lot of people. They could end up being seen as lazy or lacking drive.

It then won’t be that they are more in balance and that someone who doesn’t live in this way is out of balance; no, it will be that someone like this essentially has something wrong with them. Therefore, they are unlikely to receive a lot of positive feedback from their fellow citizens.

A Closer Look

When it comes to someone who spends a lot of time doing things, they could be a manager of a company. Or, they could simply be an employee of a company and work a lot of hours, along with filling the rest of their time with other activities.

Yet, when it comes to someone who doesn’t practically spend their whole life doing things, they could be a stay at home parent. Then again, they could have a job or be self-employed but when they are not working; their attention is unlikely to always be on achievement, with them also focusing on having fun.

A Natural Assumption

At this point, it could seem as if a man is likely to be the manager and a woman is likely to be a stay at home parent. The man would then naturally be more focused on the doing and the women would naturally be more focused on the being.

However, as both a man and a woman are made up of both the masculine and the feminine aspects, this is not the case. The fact that there are women who are managers and men who are stay at home parents shines the light on this.

The Outcome

So, in a society that values the doing and other masculine traits, not the being and other feminine traits, if a woman was to be a stay at home parent as opposed to sending her child/children to someone else to look after and going to work, she can be looked down upon. Once again, she can be seen as lacking drive and even as being “oppressed.”

And, if a man was to be a stay at home parent and his partner was to go to work, he could also be looked down upon by others; especially other men. He can be seen as being emasculated and lacking testosterone.
 
Something Else

This typical view that the masculine is better than the feminine doesn’t stop here, though, as another part of this is that the intellect is seen as being superior to the emotional self. Therefore, logic and reason (the mind) will be revered, while the ability to feel and sense things (the body) will rarely be acknowledged, let alone dismissed.

Women are often seen as being emotional and men as logical, which has played a part in why women have often been seen as being inferior throughout history. A man can believe that, unlike a woman, he is more rational and this allows him to make better decisions.

One Factor

But as men and woman have both a neocortex and a limbic system, its shows that they are no different in this regard. With this in mind, it could be said that as a lot of men have, throughout history, seen their emotional aspect as being inferior to their intellect, this has played a part in why they have had the need to control women as they have reminded them of the part of themselves that they have alienated.

Another thing that plays a part in women being more emotional is that, for so long, there has been less pressure on them to suppress their feelings. Also, due to the number of wars that there have been throughout history, there has been a lot of moments when a man has had to suppress how he feels.

How It Starts Off

Now, if someone spends a lot of time doing, there would have been time when they were very much in their feminine. At the beginning of their life, they had to rely on others to give them what they needed; they were unable to do anything for themselves.

As time passed and they continued to grow, they would have gradually got in touch with their masculine aspect. If this stage of their life was ‘good enough’, they may now have the ability to be and to do.

Deprived

If this was a stage of their life when they rarely if ever had their developmental needs met, they would have missed out on a lot of the nutrients that they needed to be able to grow and develop in the right way. They may then have emotionally shut down and lost touch with their feelings.

The stage of their life when they were in their feminine would have been a very painful time, causing them to form an unhealthy relationship with this part of their nature. This would have given them the need to be in control and prevented them from developing a felt sense of worth, love and trust.

The Fall Out

By being on the go, then, they won’t need to experience the vulnerability that they experienced all those years ago, and achieving things and becoming more successful will allow them to experience a sense of worth and to feel loved. They won’t be able to just be and to feel valuable, loved and to trust that their needs will be met, so they will need to do things to have this experience.

If they were to develop a felt sense of worth, love and trust, there is a strong chance that their behaviour would change. They wouldn’t need to use their body to affirm themselves any longer, allowing them to have moments where they are able to just be and not to think about attaining a certain outcome.

Conclusion

So, if the world was made up of people who had a ‘good enough’ upbringing and were able to just be, what would it be like? For one thing, there is a strong chance that the feminine aspect would have at least the same level of importance as the masculine.

There would be a greater focus on people’s wellbeing and the things that are associated with it such as having fun, relaxing and connection and less on achievement and success and perhaps a country’s GDP. With people having an inner sense of wholeness and peace, the earth would be inhabited by human beings, not human doings. 

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk