Ying and Yang
Black and White
Light and Dark
Good and Evil
One takes while the Other gives
Every society and person is comprised of two energies. In Western society masculine energy is competitive and selfish, while feminine energy is giving and selfless.
Both energies are necessary to the welfare of our planet. The masculine energy ensures competition and the progression of human kind. The feminine energy is the consciousness that makes sure we don’t burn through the resources Earth provides us and helps maintain our humanity with all creatures.
Western society has placed a negative connotation on certain facets of life, particularly femininity. To be feminine is to be inferior, you will have less because you take and expect less. To be masculine you will have plenty because you take and expect more which is celebrated in Western society. Some people have more of one energy while others have more of the other.
Yet each gender is stereotyped with the respective energy and its general characteristics without taking into account that each individual is different. There are women as powerful CEOs and men as homemakers. Though only 5% of CEOs are women out of 500 and men as homemakers are considered inconsequential to the welfare of their children as opposed to women homemakers.
It needs to become transparent to everyone that this automatic stereotyping is occurring. Especially to the privileged ones for they are the ones with the loudest voice. But “privilege is invisible to those who have it” (Kimmel) so it will be difficult and take time.
The age old gender roles are being challenged yet people are still stereotyped. “The greatest mistake humanity made is to give our babies opposite gender names” (Vaughan). We separate society from birth and give others the ability to form a preconceived notion of people based on their gender and the respective energy assigned to them.
Western society is striving for Equality. But the word has become arbitrary, everyone has a different idea of what it means. “One designates only the relations of things to man, and to express them one calls on the boldest metaphors” (Nietzsche). Instead we must strive for balance. Overthrow the ideal that femininity is inferior to masculinity or that any energy is lesser than another.
Both are necessary.