A journey from the masculine toward the feminine
These are excerpts from Part one of my book: Venus Genius: The Female Prescription for Innovation.
Our brains have a great plasticity, they are designed to change in response to the environment. Neuroplasticity depends on socialization. As stated by neuroscientist Gina Rippon:
“A gendered world produces a gendered brain.”
Our degree of masculinity or femininity is highly influenced by our education and upbringing. It all starts in childhood.
I was brought up between two brothers. My Dad was in the army, and my Mom, although very loving, was not particularly maternal. In my education, I was directed towards sciences and mathematics, so I grew up in a male environment. This is why I developed my masculine side to thrive in that context: as a young adult, I was hanging out with the guys, drinking beer and showing off riding my big motorcycle. I could feel empathy and nurturing stirring deep inside, but it was not appropriate to express them at that time. It’s only later in life that I reconnected to my feminine energy, thanks to beautiful encounters, including meeting my husband. And I must say that I am far happier today than I was in my 20’s. I feel more centered and rooted as a human being.
Two specific events shook me and started my reconnecting journey to my feminine side. The first one was a warning on masculinity and the second a call for femininity.
I was working on my PhD in an Agro-Chemisty laboratory in Toulouse, South of France, I was in my 20’s. It was a beautiful fall afternoon. A friend burst into the lab: “Hey, we‘re going for a coffee at our usual place, they have a big terrace, will be great with this nice weather, you join?.” I rode a motorcycle at that time, a Honda XZ 550. I had my leather outfit but didn’t put my boots on because it was just a short trip.
I arrived at the café, the terrace was crowded, I parked just in front and as usual I got a lot of attention as a skinny girl on a big black with gold stripes motorcycle. I took my time to take off my gloves, helmet — enjoying the ritual and the moment — and joined my friends at their table. We had a good time talking, laughing. At one point it was time to leave. I slowly went through the same ritual, fully conscious that all eyes were on me. My friends had shown me how to accelerate while abruptly releasing the clutch, which made the motorcycle jumpstart. I decided to use that trick to impress the crowd.
Before I knew, the 220kg motorcycle was up in the air, and fell directly on me, with the hot exhaust pipe on my leg (remember I didn’t have my boots). Of course, people rushed to help, lifted the motorcycle and asked me how I was. The burn was only superficial, but my ego was profoundly hurt.
I was wondering what happened when a guy pointed out to my front wheel: I had forgotten to take the safety chain off the wheel when I left! As we say in French, ‘luckily ridicule doesn’t kill’… Needless to say, my next departure was soft and low profile.
This made me pause and think how stupid I had been to show off like that. Whom did I want to impress? What was the point?
It was a great lesson of humility.
A few years later, I was hanging out with some male friends at one of our favorite bars in the center of Toulouse. I was not riding my motorcycle, so we were drinking beer and having sort of a ‘guys talk’.
I hadn’t noticed that the waiter, a young guy, had a crush on me. At one point, he came towards us, and gave me a rose across the counter. I could just see the mocking smiles and smirks on my friends’ faces from the corner of my eyes. As I didn’t want to show weakness and look ridiculous, I just brushed it away, saying: “No, thank you”.
The waiter looked at me — I still remember the pain in his eyes — and slowly ate the rose petals in front of me before returning to his work.
I felt something moving deep in my heart, a cry for some compassion, softness, love, gratitude, a call to let it go and be who I really was. The day after, I came back to apologize. The waiter looked at me, said: “It’s your problem to solve,” and turned his back to me.
A lot of women have similar experiences at hiding their femininity to fit a masculine environment.
Christy Curtis, a yoga and mindfulness guide I interviewed for my book, told me about her struggle at balancing the feminine and the masculine in her life:
“I was an athletic director for 10 years at the high school. I was an administrator, I learned to play hardball to be like one of the guys. Told myself that I can do this, was in peoples faces, proving myself, there was a lot of ego […] and then I realized, no wonder I hate my life because I can’t even like myself.
There was no alignment with who I was: there lived this softer, feminine, very sensitive empath inside of me who pretended to have a hardened false shell. This is when I crumbled.”
This shows how our masculine or feminine behavior is highly influenced by our environment and the people we meet.
Over the next weeks, I’m going to be sharing excerpts and stories from Part one of my book, Venus Genius in this article series. Venus Genius launched on December 7, 2020 on Amazon, here is the link to buy it: https://lnkd.in/dXbs_WK! If you want to connect, you can reach me here via email: contact@innoveve.com or connect with me on social: www.linkedin.com/in/fabienne-jacquet — https://www.facebook.com/innoveveLLC — @innoveveLLC.
