Worldview Community Blog

Gender differences is one of those topics that is still taboo in chunks of our culture, likely to result in men and women alike being tarred and feathered as being sexist. The reason is because the beginning of any discussion about gender differences is presumed to end with some silly assertion that all women belong in the kitchen, barefooted and ready for sex, or that all men are bastards and rapists. Here I want to move beyond that. It is vitally important that we explore and discuss gender if we are to begin working together to address the chronic ailments of our society.

Gender is multi-faceted affair… biology, gender identity, social gender roles, and ultimately as a spiritual orientation. Any meaningful conversation about gender differences needs to touch base with all those aspects.

Biology is the most obvious, including not only genitals and the shape of your chest but also all the hormones and other physiological variances. Biology still matters… only women can bear and suckle children. Only men have the levels of testosterone needed for the dirty jobs, like warfare driving a jackhammer.

Where all the contention comes from is the idea that biology determines your role in the home and in society. With the advent of technology, the physical prowess of men, once highly valued, has now been largely neutralised. A 60kg women can drive a 30 ton excavator, pull a trigger and push a big red button. Women now have at their fingertips the same destructive power once reserved for men. Men can operate a washing machine and fire up the vacuum cleaner.

While higher levels of testosterone are still an advantage in the competitive world of business and governance, many women have pushed through and, in some cases, occupy seats at the highest levels. Many women I speak to are not entirely content in the rough and tumble world of business, and quietly yearn to not have to bother with such things. Hormonal research suggests there may be a biological force at work in such yearnings. So biology plays a role in orienting us to what we do in life, but is by no means a solid little box into which we must try and fit ourselves. We need to move beyond that argument if we are to touch into the essence of our gender.

Gender identity is how we feel about our gender within our biological skin. While most folks feel themselves clearly as men and women in a body that matches, many are not so aligned. In every gay and lesbian relationship, one partner holds a masculine polarity while the other holds the feminine pole, even though both are of the same biological gender. And of course there are those folk who feel themselves compelled to undergo sex change operations in order to bring their biology in-line with their inner gender identity.

Gender is ultimately a spiritual question, which makes it not so much about male and female as about masculine and feminine principles. In this view, the feminine is the descent of Divine Love into the world of form (Agape), while the masculine is the ascent of consciousness from the world of form back into union with the Divine Source (Eros).

So the Earth itself and the entire physical cosmos is the feminine expression of Divine consciousness manifest as form. Our raw sensory experiences moment-to-moment are feminine in nature. How this moment feels is the basic expression of the feminine principle.

How we interpret how this moment feels is where the masculine begins. Interpretations, both conscious and unconscious, cluster together to form the ego… the inner conception of me as a human being in this world. The ego is essentially masculine. Every mental conception of anything in the world is also masculine, including philosophy, mathematics, engineering and all the academic domains.

The feminine principle is unconditionally accepting of everything she encounters, and unconditionally loving towards all of it. She perceives the world as a whole, and is attuned to the flow of energy. She lives in the present moment, spontaneously expressing the feeling tones of the moment. She creates effortlessly. Her gift to the world is the spontaneous embodiment of beauty, love and joy.

The masculine principle breaks the whole down into parts through the reasoning mind. It discriminates between all the possibilities of existence to choose his path towards freedom and peace. He exercises discipline to disentangle himself from that which does not serve his ultimate purpose of reunion with the Divine. He lives in the flow of time, focused on the future consequences of his choices while trying to free himself from the karmic consequences of the past. He creates with great effort. His gift to the world are life conditions conducive to wellbeing and freedom.

I use the pronouns “he” and “she” loosely… remember, every living person has both the masculine and feminine principles alive and active within them. The feminine principle is supported by the in-breath, the masculine by the out-breath. It’s not so much about men and women… it’s about the way both men and women embody these cosmic principles. Any person of either gender who operates at the extreme of either principle is nearly always profoundly dysfunctional… we all need BOTH to be decent, functioning human beings.

The characteristics then of people who embody these principles at the extremes are clear enough. Starting with the feminine, in whose very nature is the capacity to embody the Divine in the world of form…

• spontaneous displays of beauty and radiance
• inclined to celebrate the pleasures of embodiment
• perceives the whole of the moment all at once
• inclined to be caring and loving to all creation
• natural access to intuition (knowing without reason)
• inclined to trust feelings over reason

Meanwhile the masculine principle seeks to transcend the world of form in the quest to reunite with the Source…

• prefers to witness the world without getting too involved
• seeks resolution of worldly chaos in search of inner peace
• uses reason to “dismantle” the moment in search of a “solution”
• inclined towards rights and justice for all creation
• focused on constructing generalized wisdom (knowing with reason)
• inclined to trust reason over feelings

Sound like any men or women you know?

Feminism was the process of women claiming for themselves the masculine principle. From the 1960’s onwards, women became empowered in the world to witness with equanimity, make rational distinctions, fight for rights and justice and develop a wisdom of her own. Some 50 years after the rise of feminism, the men’s movement is about opening to feelings and intuition, bringing love and care into their behaviours, and developing trust for feelings. In other words, integrating the feminine principle into their masculine world.

So these days, many women are oriented to the masculine principles, while many men orient to their feminine side. In my experience, while this is powerful and necessary, it does not make for an attractive intimate partner. Women are often left wanting with sensitive new-age guys who lack equanimity, drive or purpose. Men are not so attracted to tough, assertive women who lack trust, tenderness and receptivity. This is the reason that relationships are so unstable these days… we are in the midst of a period of polarity reversal, where men and women alike swing back and forth trying to figure out who they really are and what they really want.

The ultimate peace in the war of the gender worlds is when both men and women can utilise both the masculine and feminine principles consciously, as required by the context of the moment. So women want men who can be tender, unconditionally accepting and loving in some moments, but then assertive, purposeful and rational in the next. Men want the same thing from their women, in running the household, in making life decisions, and especially in love making.

Sex is at its best when one person is unconditionally receptive and the other is profoundly penetrating to the soul level. If two poles with the same charge come together, either both receptive or both assertive, nothing much happens. The sexual dynamic is dry and floppy. It’s like electricity… you need a positive and negative polarity of you want to get the big charge happening.