What women got wrong about feminism

And why we need more masculinity

-6 min reading time-

Note: If you have never heard of the feminine and masculine aspects in every individual, I suggest starting with reading the issue "The Feminine and Masculine in Us" to better understand the perspective I approach here, and avoid looking through the lenses of common stereotypes.

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I was the embodiment of the "strong independent woman".

I was proud and thought highly of myself, only to realize that it actually meant how disconnected I was from my beautiful, radiant, and powerful essence.

In this journey I've been on, a significant part of it has been about learning to connect with parts of myself that allow me to rest, create, feel pleasure, experience genuine joy, and simply be present. I didn't know before, but I recently understood that this is a quest to cultivate my feminine energy.

In the past, I was highly focused on achieving ("doing, doing, doing"). I felt guilty when I wasn't working or when I spent time doing something without an "achieving purpose," like sitting under the sun to contemplate the view, reading a novel, or just doing things for the fun of it. I certainly experienced pleasure, but it wasn't truly pure pleasure, because there was always some kind of tension mixed with it. My creativity was constrained, and I constantly felt exhausted.

There are multiple factors that have led me to operate in this mindset. Today, I want to discuss one of these factors that affects us all: a dysfunctional mainstream narrative (and dynamic) created in the name of "freedom."

Feminism movement

Sadly, women have been oppressed, harmed, and killed for centuries. For centuries, we were portrayed as less intelligent, capable, or powerful. Many times, when our brilliance emerged, it was extinguished, distorted, and manipulated. A free woman was considered a dangerous woman.

Fortunately, the feminist movement was born, and women started claiming their rights to exist as freely as any other being in this world. And for those who question the relevance of the feminist movement, I have a story for you.

Feminism matters because of what my grandma went through. My grandma had the best education one could have had in her generation in Brazil. She was also an amazing artist; an exceptional painter, singer, and pianist. However, everything changed when she got married. Her husband (my grandpa who died before I was born) prohibited her from singing and playing music because she was then a married woman. He used control to constrain her. She lived her life disconnected from her authentic self. I can only imagine what a woman she would've been if it had been otherwise.

Feminism matters because of what my other grandmother and her sisters endured at a young age, being abused (beaten) by their brothers and father, who used oppression and hatred to "educate" and "protect" the women in the family.

It's important to remember that this wasn't so long ago; it wasn't hundreds of years ago. This is just one generation away from me. And still happening today in various parts of this planet. So yes, the feminist movement's voice matters so that women can continue to choose how they want to live and express the wholeness of who they are.

And that's what feminism is about: a political and cultural movement in favor of women's rights. This movement promotes the freedom to choose whether we want to work, participate in politics, vote, and express our voice and existence in the world. It also advocates for the right to be respected, honored, and valued as the human beings that we are.

What people got wrong about feminism

The problem is that, along the way, as the feminist movement became mainstream and some extremists voices got louder, invisible narratives were created that are as dysfunctional as the initial problem. Here are a few of them:

(1) The belief that “Men are the problem".

Women were oppressed, hurt, and killed, but the mistake embedded in the narrative is that the men who committed such acts did so simply because they were men, as if that's the natural order of things. Consequently, the narrative evolved towards a hatred of men, creating rivalry and dominance between men and women.

It's the pendulum effect. When experiencing a problem that represents one extreme, people naturally tend to move towards the other extreme. It's as if the solution to the problem is to invert the dynamic alone. The main issue is that, in the mainstream narrative, feminism has almost become a matter of women winning over men. But this only brings us back to the other side of the coin in a dysfunctional and unbalanced society.

What people often overlook is that what we understand today as patriarchy, the cultural system that hurts women, is that it also hurts men - in different ways than it does to women, but it still does. It's the hurt men who hurt women. Patriarchy is a system based on oppression and control, but contrary to what many assume, in essence, it's not dominance of one gender over the other, it's dominance of a few over the masses. To achieve that, you have to disconnect both men and women from their powerful, balanced energies and essence.

“Patriarchy, in our view, is an attack on masculinity in its fullness as well as femininity in its fullness. Those caught up in the structures and dynamics of patriarchy seek to dominate not only women but men as well. Patriarchy is based on fear - the boy's fear”

Robert Moore (1991)

(2) The belief that “Femininity is weak”

One of the beliefs ingrained in the patriarchy mindset is that women are “less", or that women are fragile in a sense of “weak”. The problem is that without even realizing women believed that too. Women bought the idea that being a feminine and soft woman makes her less powerful. I tell you so because I also believed that. I believed that I had to prove how “strong and independent” woman I was. Because the fact of just BEING a woman apparently didn't signify strength and power.

The irony of it all, is that the narrative tells you that to be a “strong and independent woman” in this modern world you should embody the qualities of the masculine. The warrior archetype, the achiever, the “I can do it all”, the “why do we ever need men for?". But when a woman stands mostly in her masculine energy, it leads to a disconnection of herself, of her essence, because women's unique power comes from our feminine energy (like wisdom, intuition, authenticity, abundance, beauty, and creativity, to name a few qualities).

Our modern, especially western, society operates in a constant, intense masculine energy. And when I say masculine, I'm not talking about men. I'm talking about what it demands from us, and how the “ideal” of the admirable woman is portrayed. We have to lead, provide, be assertive, achieve things in the world, not depend on others, take care of others, and not let others take care of us. This constantly activates the masculine in women. That's one of the reasons why women feel constantly tired and exhausted nowadays. Our femininity is in urgent need of being cultivated.

(3) The belief that “Men and Women are the same”

Another misconception perpetuated by the mainstream narrative is the notion that men and women are “the same”. I too held this belief in the past. However, men and women are not the same. We are profoundly different in more ways than one can imagine.

The most obvious factor lies in our biology and how our hormones function. Men have a 24-hour hormone cycle, which means that their energy levels and inclination to "do" things are almost linear. They barely feel any changes from their hormones in their capacity to be productive and maintain the same daily routine.

Women, on the other hand, have a hormonal cycle of 28 days. This presents a very different picture. It means that during these 28 days, we will experience varying levels of energy and sensitivity, which directly impact our capacity for constant "doing" and productivity. On the other hand, this creates space that enhances our capacity for creativity, accessing our wisdom and intuition.

As women, we were taught to disconnect from ourselves, so that we could exist in a constant masculine energy that literally doesn't suit the way our bodies function, leading us to operate in ways that literally make us ill. Our bodies are wise, and they reveal a lot about our connection to ourselves, others, and life itself.

When I say that men and women are different, I'm not saying that one is better than the other, they're simply different. Nature is the most intelligent system ever observed. Nothing in nature is redundant. When we observe its intelligence and its multiple layers closely, we begin to understand that men and women are interdependent, we are complementary forces.

Why we need more masculinity

In order to create space for women to rise, the natural response to these erroneous beliefs, was to think that we need less masculinity from men. But this logic is broken.

Saying that the masculinity of men harms women is a mistake, because the inherent nature of the strong mature masculine is to create safety. Actually, what we have seen and experienced throughout generations is the dysfunctional aspect of masculine in men. It's what Robert Moore refers to as “Boy psychology”, the psyche of the child. It's abusive and express violent acting-out behaviours against others (men and women). It uses dominance because of its weakness, an underdeveloped sense of self. It oscillates between passivity and abuse.

The misunderstanding that many of us have been entangled at is the idea that we need less of the masculine in men. But actually we need more masculinity, because whenever there's mature masculinity, there's is safety: emotional, physical and spiritual.

It's in the presence of the masculine energy that the feminine energy in women flourishes. When there's safety, we women can rest and relax in our bodies, and use our power to create from a place of beauty, freedom, and spirituality what we have to offer in this world.

The mature masculine energies always bring forth a new masculine personality that is marked by calm, compassion, clarity of vision, and generativity.”

It's true that we are experiencing a crisis in masculinity in men, as we have been for ages. Aggression, oppression, authoritarianism, or passivity - on the other side of the spectrum - are expressions of the dysfunctional masculine energy. It's the picture of man who haven't matured and strengthened his own psyche. He is still stuck in the boy's psychology.

Creating Balance

Both the power of femininity and the power of masculinity are extremely important for a balanced world. When one overrules the other, or when they are not expressed maturely, we start experiencing dysfunctional dynamics and, therefore, we hurt.

The force of a woman grows when she is connected to her feminine energy, when she understands that just by being a woman, she is powerful. She doesn't need any adjectives to qualify her as such. This power doesn't come from outside of us, it doesn't come from what we get or achieve in the world, it comes from inside of us when we recognize the subtle aspects of the feminine.

The truth, however, is that for feminine energy to blossom in women, a woman needs to feel safe, so she can relax. Women who say, "I don't need any man," are fully in their masculine energy, they're not relaxed.

For a man to be in his mature healthy masculine, he needs to connect with his inner world and emotions (his own feminine energy). Generations of patriarchal society, passing from father to son, have created men disconnected from themselves. They've been led to believe that connecting with their feminine aspects makes them weak, when in fact, the opposite is true.

 No one can control a man who is grounded in himself. By disconnecting men from their bodies, feelings, and senses, they become more reactive (or passive - “turned off”) and more susceptible to acting based on what the world says it's expected of them.

The healthy masculine in men provides safety, creates protection, and offers a structure for the feminine to thrive. This translates into a state of relaxation, creativity, and radiance for women. Whenever there is even a slight lack of safety, a woman naturally moves into her masculine, preventing her from accessing the feminine states that make her shine from the inside out.

Recently, someone told me something in the most beautiful way I've heard:

"The masculine exists to offer a fertile ground, so the feminine can flourish."

It's important to remember that we all, men and women, possess both feminine and masculine energies inside of us that evoke different qualities. When we women learn to honour and heal the feminine in ourselves, we learn to honour the masculine in others. When men learn to honour and heal the masculine in themselves, they learn to honour the feminine in others.

With love,

Nat

ps: If you have any curiosities, questions, or even differing views, I would love to hear from you. This way, I can enrich my writing by addressing various perspectives.