Feminine Aspect and Society

Within women there is a biological urge to bear children at some time during their life in order to perpetuate the species. Depending on one’s particular genetic makeup, this is felt more strongly by some women than by others, but it is felt by most all women to some degree. If a woman reaches her thirtieth year and has not had a child, she will often find herself yearning for a husband and child at that time.

Amongst those women today who have chosen a professional life, many find dissatisfaction. As they grow a bit older, they feel that they have been cheated out of something of importance. So, for most women, there is this biological urge for childbearing, which affects both their body and their mind. Often the one who has incarnated in feminine form will find that this desire to sustain one’s line through having offspring becomes a prominent need in due time. If this need is denied, many times a woman will feel certain emptiness in her later life, a feeling that she has not fulfilled something of significance to her in terms of emotional relationships. This is because the potential relationship she can have with her own children is different from any other kind of relationship.

First of all, the woman is attracted to the male, to a man, and finds that the romantic relationship becomes foremost in her mind. But then, after some time, there arises a longing for a relationship with a child and for the unconditional love, which a child may give. Many women find that this longing increases with age. Even if they have professional careers and engagements, still this inherent biological longing and the accompanying emotional longing arise because it is basic to the biological makeup of the feminine form. There is a need to bear offspring, to nurture children, to experience the unconditional love of a young child, to experience the deep emotional bond that can be had with a child. For many women this becomes the dominant factor in their life. It becomes everything. There are some women, however, in whom this need is less dominant and who, due to circum­stances, find that having children would be quite inconvenient. These women manage to maintain themselves without the establishment of this experience of motherhood.

For the majority of women, however, motherhood is a tre­mendously significant experience and one, which provides great re­ward if the woman is allowed to raise her child in an atmosphere of peace, security and where she feels she is protected. The mother feels the need to protect, bond with and deeply nurture the young child. But for her to do that, she cannot at the same time be ag­gressively pursuing her own welfare in the world. Otherwise, that external work will take most of her energy and very little will be left for the child. So when a woman becomes pregnant and throughout the first five years of the child’s life it is optimal if she has a husband who will be the pri­mary support of the family, allowing her to focus on this in­timate relationship with the child.

In today’s world, many men also bond very strongly with their children and they very much appreciate this relationship with the child. There are also those women, who by necessity go out and work while the husband might remain home with the child, taking on himself what traditionally might be seen as a more feminine role while she takes the more masculine role of breadwinner and protector. This may work successfully if the family can adjust. Both men and women have a side of their personality which can give nurturance and unconditional love and which is rooted in their most basic instincts designed biologically to foster the development of their young children. Both also have the ability to go out and earn money, to bring home what is needed for the family. Both have these capacities. Both have a masculine side and a feminine side. But in women, in those in female form, the feminine side, the anima, is generally more prominent and in the man the masculine side, the animus, is generally more prominent. There are people who reverse these roles. The man may play the more traditionally feminine role of nurturing and caring for the family, and the woman goes out. Sometimes this is done out of necessity or when circumstances demand.

If the woman should have the greater earning capacity due to certain professional skills, then it may be necessary for her to go out and become the wage earner, but this will definitely affect her biological expression. She will begin to adopt more male qualities that have to do with assertion in the world, with protection and expression. The man who stays at home taking care of the children will necessarily assume the more feminine qualities of nurturance and care for the needs of the immediate family. However, there are also those men who stay at home like this, but resent it very much and don’t do their duty well and there are those women who very much resent being forced into the work place to support the family. They also do not do their duty well. Living a lifestyle that is in conflict with their innate character, they develop certain complexes, resentments and angers. The man may feel he is too suppressed or that his manliness is not appreciated. The woman may feel that she is being taken advantage of and overburdened by the demands of the world and that she is not allowed to do those things which she really wants to do such as being with home and family. These arrangements may lead to anger and resentment because the individuals are forced by circumstance into expressing the more passive side of their manifestation. Their weaker side has to become the dominant one. They might feel uncomfortable and out of sorts. These things may occur due to circumstances.

Feminine mysticism has nothing to do with asserting women’s rights in the world, although the oppression of women is a very significant factor in the society today and has been for several thousands of years. Women have been suppressed in all areas of expression. In the sphere of religion and religious rules, women have been suppressed as priestesses and religious leaders or even as participants. This suppression has even reached to the most mundane aspects of life. For example, there is suppression of their ability to earn money, to inherit property, or even to earn respect for their ability. Women as a group have been suppressed worldwide but today that is beginning to change. It has not changed as yet but it is beginning to change.

However, the current trend in the society that to progress women should bring forth their so-called masculine side, express more of their animus, and become more dominant and aggressive in the workplace is not a solution. In that case, what happens is that a woman’s needs are even further compromised. She is expected to work according to the schedule of a man with a full time job, forty hours or even more, in a highly aggressive environment. She must suppress her feminine needs and her biological nature in order to achieve respect and financial security. She is not respected for her true nature. This solution does not deal with the basic problem. The woman is still not respected for her feminine qualities. Rather, she is respected only when she adopts a masculine lifestyle and suppresses her feminine side! But those women who become mothers and who dedicate themselves to nurturing and caring for others are not given any proper respect at all. This is still true today anywhere in the world. A mother is not someone who is highly esteemed. But a chief executive of an important corporation, on the other hand, is a person who is very much appreciated! If you have three lovely children and you have worked just as hard as that executive to raise those children, this is not considered a significant achievement. In fact, it bears no notice at all. If you are a top executive of a major corporation and one hundred people work for you, then you are a very important person!

Women have gained nothing through this trend other than further suppression of their feminine character. There is an implicit agreement amongst all that success in the aggressive externalized activities of the workplace depends on enhancing the male side of one’s personality and suppressing the female side. In this way, women will earn respect. The professional women who succeed in corporate life may get some of the respect, not all certainly, but some of the same respect as their male counterparts in today’s world. But those women who express their traditionally feminine side will not get any respect at all.

So what rights have women actually won when women’s needs, values or traditionally and biologically-supported activities are not given respect or any place of honor in the society?

In the matriarchal societies, the mother, the woman who had the most offspring, who was the heartiest was considered the greatest person in the clan. She was a strong person who could foster the clan’s development. Her protection and mothering was considered the most important factor in life. The nurturing quality of the mother was considered the ideal personal quality in the society. In those times, many men tried to suppress their masculine side, wanting to be like mothers because of their admiration for such group leaders. This tendency has always existed and many men still feel this way today because a son cannot help but love his mother.

But during the ensuing patriarchal era, many have become very aggressive and the women who are now admired are those who can compete with this masculine assertion. Those who do the traditional feminine duties of nurturing and bearing offspring, taking care of family and loved ones, of serving others, as nurses are not respected. Those who care for the sick and the lame are given no status, nor are they properly paid because it is considered lowly to take care of people. But if you have a good mind for math and computers, that is considered to be of higher status. So we see that women have not gained any liberation through this approach. Although they have gained some degree of independence from the economic oppression of men, they have not yet gained their place as a whole. In fact, their place has been further eroded because the feminine side is not at all respected.

Furthermore, this lack of respect for the feminine aspect of human manifestation has led to the degraded and degenerated condition of the whole society, of the world today. It has led to excessive aggression, war, political dominance and economic greed. Because the feminine aspect has not been brought forward, the care, love and nurturance of living beings is considered a secondary activity. When the welfare of living beings is not important, what happens? So many living beings are being eradicated from the planet today. So many human beings are suffering in mass numbers without care. Those who are the natural caretakers, who would nurture and care for others, are not given proper respect. They are not supported in these activities. But those who would push forward aggressively for economic control, for corporate power, for political dominance, these people are given free rein! Because of this lopsided approach, a terrible imbalance has been created in the human society. When women suppress their feminine nature and learn to assert only their masculine qualities, this only furthers the difficulty.

It is only when the feminine face of God is once again revealed that these things can improve. It is only when feminine qualities are once again integrated into the society with momentum that healing can take place. This suppression of the feminine and the great disturbances we are experiencing in human society today are not unrelated. When human beings begin to place greater value on caring for each other, on helping others, on resolving the problems that cause suffering and pain to all living beings, when these things become valued, when the nurturance of living beings is the foremost concern, only then will the world be transformed. And this will only come about when the feminine aspect returns to prominence. Without such changes, the world will simply continue to suffer as it does now. Therefore, this suppression of feminine qualities and disrespect for the feminine aspect of human beings is significant.

Both men and women have feminine aspects and masculine aspects but because they are biologically driven, men will show a tendency to express more self-assertion, more of the warrior spirit; and women will tend to express more nurturance of children and clan, love of family, interaction, communication, and care-taking. These are traditional, biologically-driven feminine traits. Assertion, protection, competition are all traditional, biologically-driven masculine traits. Though one cannot say that a particular person being male or female would have certain predominant traits accordingly; but in the main one can say that more women are of one inclination and more men of another.

The suppression of the feminine is a great problem in today’s world. No one can say when or exactly how all of this will change. But it can be said that when the pain of human life is very, very great, those who can soothe, comfort and care for the needs of others are surely more in need than those who can build empires. When the pain is less, the building of empires and dreams perhaps becomes the dominant need.

War is blight upon the face of mankind. It is a dark stain in the history of human life. It can be eradicated only through the enhancement of the feminine aspects of human nature. What mother wants to see her son killed or killing others? What mother wants to send her son to war? If all the mothers of sons were asked to run the world, perhaps we would find it a different place.

This feminine aspect is greatly needed in the world today. Unfortunately, the liberation of women that has shown itself to date has not as yet hit the primary issue. The struggles to give women higher status, to increase their earning capacity, to gain recognition that they have the capacity to do many of the jobs that men can do have all been good efforts because they have brought women out of a certain disrespected category and made it clear that they have the ability to develop all of the same talents, skills and even the ruthlessness shown by men, in fact, even more ruthlessness than men at times. But it has not brought honor, prestige, or complete respect for the feminine aspects of the human psyche, which, in a woman, are driven by her biological makeup. To this date, the movement for the rights of women has not as yet brought women into a status of respect as women.

Men too need rest. Today’s workplace is not at all attuned to the needs of human beings, but rather to the needs of the companies. It would be better for all if working hours shorter and all had gainful employment. This could easily be done but it would require a different psychology in the minds of employers, a psychology of greater compassion and more care for the needs of others, with more feminine aspects and feminine values. By feminine values, I mean those values associated with nurturing and protecting others, communicating with people, and the rearing of young children.

Generally in the western society there is what people call the generation gap. Traditionally, people lived together in a tribe or clan and this concept did not exist. It is something born of today’s western society, a problem based in the psychology manifest in this culture. The point is well taken that some parents become domineering or overbearing towards their children. On the other hand, the child who learns to honor the grandmothers and grandfathers, the mothers and fathers gains guidance and direction. Through this grounding, children can find their own expression as they mature. Over time, the parents naturally become feebler and their ability to be so dominant declines while the ability of the younger generation increases and then they begin to dominate. This is the way the tide has changed, generation by generation, in all traditional societies. But in those societies where parents are given great honor and where they take the time to have some understanding regarding their children, then these generational problems become less extreme. A lot depends upon the values that underpin the social order.

In today’s technological world, we do not find the simple clan. A simple tribe or clan may include one or two hundred people and is relatively isolated from others. But in today’s world, we find a global society in constant interaction through the technologies of communication, travel and intellectual interfacing, such that the world is becoming one. The world is becoming what people call a global village. We no longer find that tribe of two hundred people; now it is a tribe of billions! Very few people can relate to billions of others. They still want to maintain their own identity within this crowd. Today’s lifestyles incorporate travel and technology on a daily basis. The children are going here and there; the parents are going here and there. Sometimes it is the parents who leave the children rather than the children who leave the parents. But the end result is that families are broken and split apart. Not only the extended family has disintegrated, but also even the nuclear family has been torn to shreds. Greater value has been placed on worker productivity than on human relationships. If human relationships had primary value in the society, then this destruction would not be allowed. Therefore, this feminine value that honors human relationships as being of primary importance is very, very significant, crucial at this time.

Human beings have discovered the airplane. They have discovered that they can travel anywhere they like. They can have lunch in Hong Kong and dinner in Hawaii and wake up the next morning in New York City. They can do so many things. It is as if they are playing with technology. They have not developed a mature relationship with it. They have not been able to establish their interlinking association in a viable way as yet. But that is soon to come. It will definitely come soon.

The human heart is completely suppressed in the present society. Human needs are not being met and the oppression of the human spirit waxes horrifically. Though some people enjoy greater and greater material wealth, others suffer even for their basic needs. There is no sense of caring for the entire human family as one because that family feeling is overpowered by the vaeshyan values, by the capitalist greed of those who are ready to gain corporate success at any cost.

In this paradigm, other human beings are not loved ones, they are not people we care for, they are consumers, and they are our market! They have to be trained to need, then that need must be taken advantage of for economic gain. From another viewpoint, they are also the workers who produce those products for consumption. What is of value in the society today? It is the production of goods for consumption. If one is actively producing and earning money and then consuming those products, one is a good member of society.

Human relationships have very little importance in such a system, what matters is productivity and consumption. This is part and parcel of the prevailing vaeshyan psychology that has spread everywhere and has practically become today’s global philosophy. Wars are being fought in the Middle East because of a clash between two value systems. On one side, there are dogma-based religious societies that stick to the old ways and place more emphasis on family closeness. On the other side are the vaeshyan societies that value productivity and consumption above all human relationships. However, neither dogma-based nor self-centered philosophies such as capitalism can give the human race what it needs. For dogma-based ideologies steep the people in dependence upon religious rigors and scriptures instead of real spiritual growth and bring about a great controlling force that is often very suppressive, particularly to women. But the self-centered ideologies such as capitalism that emphasize personal acquisition also do not satisfy the human heart.

Capitalism is the dominant force in the world today but it also suppresses the feminine, despite a façade of liberation. Self-centered philosophies are inherently suppressive of the feminine aspects of human nature because love, interconnection and nurturance are a far lesser priority than productivity and consumption. In fact, those more human values are even a threat to productivity. So this type of ideology can never save the human beings. They must have an ideology that has first priority on the nurturance of all living beings upon this planet! First priority must be the sustainability of the planet, the wholeness of the human race, and the interconnectedness of all life. In this type of ideology, the primary goal is the sustenance of life. It is a spirit-based ideology. It inspires and satisfies the human heart. It can inspire and encourage all generations of people.

In such an ideology, naturally, the feminine, life-supporting aspect of the human psyche becomes dominant. This is done not through the suppression of the masculine aspect but by allowing the feminine aspect of the human psyche to rise to its natural position. The exploration, development and assertion are still there but the nurturance and sustenance of living beings become the first value. This cannot happen without liberating the feminine aspect from within the human psyche and bringing greater value, greater significance, greater importance to this aspect in the society.

As I have said, this aspect can be expressed in men as well as women. These values can be aspired to by men as well as women. But the psychology of it is biologically inherent in the feminine form. Therefore, when it becomes a dominant value in the society, it will naturally be a greater propensity among women. At that time, women will acquire a very different status. This is certain. But for this to become the dominant value in the society, women must have a different place, must create a different place for themselves in the world around them. The true liberation of women involves much more than some women proving that they can do as well as a man in a man’s world.

Women themselves are discovering these things through their own experience. Even though they may have been highly successful professionals in the world, they are discovering that this professional success is not a substitute for a happy home and loving children. And they are discovering that the strain of many years of this type of working schedule is too much for them.

Women want intellectual challenge. There is nothing wrong with that. And most women want to be appreciated. Does not every woman want to be appreciated? People in general want to be appreciated. They want to be respected by others. And when they go out and they get a job by being a PhD or they are head of some corporation, they get a lot of respect. But when they are merely a house­wife, what respect is given them? And then, they are isolated as well. There is neither any social life nor any prestige for a woman who re­mains in her home. Women are no different than men in desiring these things. In fact, women need social life more than men. And now after a long history of being treated as inferior, they strongly desire that prestige. It doesn’t work when the mother is isolated at the home, when there is no extended family or others around and when there is no prestige given for bearing and raising children. Even though her body cries out to have them, she must have prestige and social contact or she will not be happy. What woman wants to stay at home in complete isolation, working hard without recognition? Naturally, she would rather go to work. She is not stupid. But then, things at work are also too much for her. And all of the impulses born of her innate biological makeup scream out against such an environment. So women find themselves in a real dilemma, a dilemma that they did not face fifty years ago when perhaps they had less status in the work place but at least they had their extended family around them. They had more emotional support in the home and at least there they had a place. They do not have any real place today. This is a matter of great concern. The society today is not more liberated, it is more enslaved.

Society has become more urbanized. There has been a steady migration from the countryside and the villages to the cities. Many people are displaced and alienated from their families. With the onset of greater mobility and easy access to travel, the international aspect of life is beginning to predominate. People communicate through the Internet and travel across the globe. The mobility of people is such that now it has escalated from the initial impact of industrialization which brought people from the village into the city and destroyed many of the family groupings to the point now where people are flying hither and thither like birds. They may live in one place and next week they have a job 4,000 miles away or 8,000 miles away. Easy transportation has enlarged the area of alienation.

But mobility itself is not the real cause. The real cause is the emphasis on capitalism and the self-centered ideology which has drilled into the people that the important thing in life is to have objects, to consume and to produce, and that this is more important and more valuable than their relationships to those they love. This devaluing of human relationships goes entirely against the psyche of a woman but also makes people more isolated and alone. Even the small nuclear family is breaking down. People become estranged individuals, alone and lonely in the world. And they feel terrible pain in this condition, this heart-breaking condition. The situation needs to be reversed. It will be reversed.

Technology is at an infantile stage. The aim is not to go back to the past, to the horse and buggy and the bullock cart. This is where the dogma-based ideologies are incorrect. They say, “Go back to the past, the good old days.” They see the problems in the self-centered ideologies. They see the unhappiness of people. They see that people in those nations have lost their fundamental ties to each other and are very alienated and unhappy. They don’t want that in their own society. The children of capitalism have lost not only their fundamental religions but their innate spiritual base as well. The children of dogma don’t want that. But they wrongly think that if they could simply go back to the past and impose their rigid beliefs on people that this would solve the problem. They deny technology. But this will not solve the problem. Rather, the solution to the problem lies in the development of technology to its next stage. In that stage, people will not have to travel so much. It is very stressful to travel. Some people must commute for hours every day. Why would they need to go hither and thither except for a vacation? Or perhaps in their young age they might go out and see the world.

But people do want to have their basic social groupings. So we can expect a return to a village-centered lifestyle where economic sustainability is maintained in a single locale and where families and friendships can grow and develop on a local level. At the same time, there will be complete global communication and association as well. Yet in this way, the integrity of the family can be maintained. And the social groupings, the clan, the family, the community can be re-established. When this happens, the society will regain its lost balance. But none of this can happen as long as the feminine is suppressed because in the self-centered ideology those crucial human relationships are considered completely irrelevant, not even worth mentioning. Human needs and human relationships are not of importance. The only things of importance are the establishment of productivity and consumption. This type of thinking has led to great affliction for many people in today’s world.

This misery is occurring on a very broad scale. Depression is said to be the number one disease in the western world today. Why would depression be number one? Is this natural to human beings? Absolutely not! It is completely unnatural, abnormal. It is a very bad sign. Normally, it is extremely rare that a person would fall into a deep depression, perhaps because they have lost a loved one or because some serious tragedy has happened in their life. It should not be a common thing amongst people. But depression is today as common as the common cold! Everyone in the society seems to be besieged by it at one time or another. Why? Why is this happening? It is because there are fundamental needs in human beings for interconnectedness, safety, and security, for recognition of who they are, for a sense of belonging to a family or social group where they can know their place. These needs of relatedness are currently completely neglected. The society in general is in a very unstable and disconnected state and the individual becomes a small lone figure in the big wide world. This feeling is very, very painful. What happens under these circumstances? What happens when human beings feel that there is no way to establish or maintain the kinds of meaningful, secures, and stable relationships that they so deeply crave? It is only natural that people in such an agonizing setting are beleaguered by depression.

Basic human needs are not being met and the society does not offer people any viable means to establish solid, lasting, safe, stable relationships so that they feel they have a place, a connection within a network of relationships. Due to this lack, depression runs rampant in the human society today. It plagues the human beings, who suffer in anguish. The system of emphasis on capitalism, on chasing after material wealth as the goal of life, has subjugated the human spirit. But the human heart cannot be suppressed forever! People want to feel love. They want to love others and to be loved. They want to feel connected. They want to feel a sense of mystical association. This human spirit cannot be contained and restricted for long. The mind grows in magnitude. The overflowing human heart will surely prevail over this narrow tyranny and oppression of the human spirit that exists today.

As thinking moves to a higher level, people will find ways to transform the world around them. It is not necessary to suppress technology. Instead, better to develop it more and more because as human capacity and vision expands and grows in magnitude, people will find ways to reduce environmental pollution more and more, to live in harmony with their environment and the world around them. They will find ways to work from home, to work within the community. And they will have less need to travel hither and thither merely to secure employment. As time goes by, the realization is growing that it would be better to stop sitting in traffic jams and stay put amid those with whom one is closely connected. Then when they travel it will be for enjoyment, for exploration, not out of harsh economic necessity. That will be a different world.