In the spaces I hang out in, there is this kind of return back to traditional ways of living.
Some examples are: growing your food, raising your own meat and eggs, valuing local food, building tight knit community, birthing babies at home with midwife or free birthing, spending more time with your babies and resting postpartum, valuing motherhood, breastfeeding and extended breastfeeding, taking care of and managing the home, homeschooling, learning about and utilizing herbal and natural medicine for yourself and your family, cooking from scratch; you get the picture.
In the past these things may have been called ‘Women’s Work’. That term itself has almost become derogatory in some circles, but for me, it’s the perfect term.
These pieces are generally women’s work. It doesn’t mean men can’t do them, but it does mean that women are generally better at them and value them more and I would argue, have more innate gifts in these departments.
Here is the first thing I’ll say that may be slightly inflammatory and that is women and men are different, they are not the same. This does not mean one is worse or better, it means they are different. Their physiology is different. Their brains works differently. Their hearts and minds are focused on different things, generally.
Collectively, we have undervalued Women’s Work for generations because we have undervalued women on the whole and feminism didn’t value women, it just told them to be more like men.
And through the traditional feminist movement, women moved more and more into other types of work. The traditional feminist movement says, “Women can do whatever men can do,” and held this as empowering to women.
I am so grateful for the feminist movement and it’s figureheads like Ruth Ginsberg for making it possible for women to vote, take out a mortgage and own a business etc.
However, my argument has always been, yes, women can do whatever men can do, but what about what they want to do? What about what nourishes them? What about what feeds their soul on an internally oriented level? I wrote more about this feminism piece here.
To me the true feminism is valuing Women’s Work just as much as Men’s Work. To value birthing a baby as much as a corporate high paying job. To value what it takes to keep a home as much as the procurement of a home. To value the production of breastmilk as much as the production of investments.
For example, to actually see breastfeeding as an investment equal to or more important than an IRA.
This is the next evolution of feminism. To see the work that women and men do in the world as equally important and valuable.
And of course, for those of us, myself very much included, who would like to work and have a family, that should be available too, but without it meaning that I have to shoulder all of the Women’s Work of my home.
We are starting to see how important Women’s Work is to our health on a collective and individually, and that is why I think we see so many women choosing to stay at home with their kids, give up their ‘high powered’ careers, and focus on Women’s Work again.
However, the distortion I want to point out here is the reverting back to traditional ideologies around the value of feminine and masculine within this phenomenon of women returning back to the home. This is what I’ll refer to as the ‘trad(itional) wife’ movement.
Just because you want to take care of a home does not mean you have to be a pretty wall flower who is subservient to her husband.
Just because you’d like to stop doing your life-force-sucking-big-girl-job and raise a family doesn’t mean you are dumber, less capable, or less worthy than your husband who keeps his corporate career and directly brings in the money.
This idea would just be reverting back to the way things were before the feminist movement. This is not actually valuing Women’s Work. It’s continuing to put it a rung lower than men’s work.
It’s saying, staying home with my family means I have less power than my husband who “earns” the money. And I put earn in quotes, because the truth is the Woman is always responsible for tapping into the life force that brings money in. All very rich men have women with huge systems behind and around them.
Something I see in the content these trad wife people put out is this concept of being ‘in your femininity,’ so that your husbands can be ‘in his masculinity.’
There is a big difference between femininity/masculinity and the feminine and the masculine.
Along with the femininity and the masculinity ideals is the assumption that the woman and the man in a relationship are these clear cut puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together. The truth is so much more nuanced and gray.
The feminine and masculine are about content. Each and every human has both aspects, feminine and masculine, within them. This is a ubiquitous teaching across many traditions and modalities. Yin and yang, for example.
Most women have more feminine aspects in their total system and most men have more masculine aspects in theirs, but in these teachings around feminine and masculine energetics this doesn’t have to be the case.
For example, I am very close to even in my feminine and masculine aspects in my system and so is my husband. I have a touch more access to the feminine energetics because of my gender and he has a bit more proclivity to masculine energetics, but really we’re both similar in total.
Femininity and masculinity is about affectation, it’s about how you present yourself or act. It’s about a performance. It’s about the form, not the content.
So this idea of being in my femininity is really just about about how you dress, act, look, how you do your hair, it’s not about about who and what you are. It’s not about the Truth.
This is the crux, for me, about why, collectively, moving into our femininity or masculinity is not what to focus on if we want to create more Truth.
The feminine is Life force itself. It’s chaotic. It’s messy. It’s the matter. The puss and the blood. It’s also collaboration, community, and nourishment. It’s unconditional love. It’s fierce mama bear love that sets us right when we’ve gone off track. It’s the pure energetic power. It’s receptive.
The masculine is the holding. The container. The linear. The organizing force. The skill. It’s penetrative.
These two working together in a system where both feminine and masculine aspects are revered and fed is what I called Divine Union, which is what the femininity and masculinity and perfectly fitting puzzle pieces is a toxic mimic of.
In my world, the Feminine leads with her Holy Desire (aka her connection to Life itself, not her egoic wants), the Desire of Life that moves through her, and the Masculine holds and directs based on that Desire.
Or as my teacher says and her teacher said before that, “The Feminine is the call the Masculine is the response.”
This is the phrase that my personal marriage and partnership is based upon.
However, this isn’t actually about wife and husband. I didn’t say, “The wife is the call and the husband in the response.” No.
This is about the right relationship between the feminine and masculine energetics within the husband and wife themselves.
The masculine is in service to the feminine opening because the feminine opening to Life is what feeds both of them.
The masculine wants to serve. The masculine within our own selves as well as the masculine within our partner.
But this orientation has to happen internally, first. Then you see it reflected in the external.
The feminine leads because She connected to the pulse of Life. She is connected to the greater flow of Life.
The masculine serving the feminine opening to Life is the right relationship. And by ‘right’ I don’t mean defendable or logically right, I mean as in the energetic of the ISness. It is what is. It is energetic law.
And anything that isn’t in that relationship will feel like grinding. It will feel like it goes against the flow. It will feel unsatisfying, untrue, crunchy, to the part of us that is connected to our mind-less Knowing. And we can go against the flow in this dimension if we choose to.
Bringing these energetics within ourselves into right relationship with each other is how smooth creation happens. Creation requires both masculine and feminine. Hello human babies!
Divine Union is how we create in flow with Life/God/Universe.
This Divine Union has to happen within ourselves before it happens externally. And thats why the affectation of masculinity and femininity will never result in Divine Union, because it’s externally focused.
In a relationship, internally or externally, where the Feminine aspects are just as revered as the Masculine aspects, insights like bodily feelings, intuition, clair senses and oracular sight are valued just as much as logic, reasoning and rationality.
She (and I don’t mean the Woman, necessarily, although a lot of times she has most access to the Feminine, I mean the Feminine) is the first step in any decision. She is the one who says “This is a Yes,” or, “This is a No,” of “I don’t know yet” (which could always be the Truth too.)
She is trusted. It doesn’t mean the Masculine doesn’t have a say. It doesn’t mean logic and reasoning are not taken into account. It just means they are not overvalued or where action springs from.
She is most definitely not subservient. She is equally revered. Which is a great responsibility.
Because the Feminine pole is generally held by the woman in most heteronormative relationships these days, this is where I feel women aren’t willing to take responsibility and where the trad wife/polarity thing becomes so appealing.
If you have to hold the pole of Feminine Knowing, which is so undervalued in our collective society, you may be called crazy, you may be called emotional, you may be called hysterical, you may be called silly.
You may come up against someone (and this someone might be your husband) who says, “Where is your research? Where are your peer reviewed studies?”
You may come up against someone who says you’re dangerous and harmful because you’re not taking into account “the science.”
And I’ll tell you, as I have held this pole against these types of accusations my whole life, it’s not easy. It is not pleasant. You do not get accolades or praise. You mostly just get side eyes and head shakes.
But, it’s worth it to me. Because I am here to uphold the Feminine, the Mother and Nourishment on all levels.
Look around, we are all starving for Her.
The Masculine is starving for something True to serve. Give him someone he can follow and serve, so that true creation can happen.
I believe we need a return of the cultural Mother archetype.
Someone who says, “That is enough. Time to eat. Time to rest.”
The one who can see the larger picture and without proof back and trust the Wisdom in her bones because our bodies can interpret so much more than our minds ever could about reality.
The one who can say No More without any explanation.
Then we will see the Mature Masculine arise as well.
He needs Her and She needs Him.
Feminity and masculinity would like you to believe polarity is what is required for a healthy and exciting relationship.
Polarity is not Divine Union.
Polarity is a kink. Polarity can be super sexy and hot, no doubt, but Divine Union is much more long term, adult, and satisfying on a soul level.
If you get off on acting out little girl and daddy dynamics and you do that consciously by choice, more power to you.
When it comes to raising little humans and living your real life, you better show them and allow yourself the full range of human expression and hold permission for that.
If not, you’ll end up burying and suppressing huge parts of yourself or your little one’s selves. And subverted parts of ourselves will always come out sideways and toxic if you let them fester underneath the surface for too long.
You are the whole package, my love.
You are Her and Him.
The King and the Queen.
And the true King and Queen rule together, side by side.
This is the next evolution of Woman and Man, to exalt and revere each other and all eachothers’ gifts equally, so that Divine Union and creation in alignment with Life itself may happen.
If you are a Woman reading this, your role as a Mother, Wife, Daughter, Sister, Friend, is to allow yourself to be the fullness of who you are, not to play some fun little role.
Being all of yourself is terrifying because you are Huge.
Just remember, that does not make others smaller.
It only gives permission to those around you to be their right size too, including your partner. If you make yourself smaller than you are, you are actually doing them a disservice, because you moving into your fullness is an invitation for them to do the same.
The Feminine in the call, the Masculine is the response.
Inquiries to Sit With:
What have I been calling into my relationship?
What is my internal relationship to the Feminine? What do I judge or hold dangerous, unwanted, gross or unpalatable about my nature?
Allow yourself to feel into the energetics of subservience vs reverence in your body? What does It feel to be subservient to your partner vs having reverence for your partnership?
The Mature Feminine The World Needs