For hundreds of years, we’ve divided our energy into “masculine” and “feminine” – whether we call it masculine and feminine energy, yang and yin, or left brain and right brain.
| Masculine (Yang) Hard Outward Projecting Rational Logical Focused Firm Purposeful | Feminine (Yin) Soft Inward Receptive Intuitive Creative Multi-tasked Compassionate Loving |
We’ve convinced ourselves that if we want to achieve anything, masculine energy is better. So look at the feminine energy again. Look at what we’ve tried to stamp out from our personal success – how our society runs – how corporations and governments function – how we treat our planet. Does part of you read that list and think “weak”? Can we afford to live without those qualities? Can we live without those qualities?
Every aspect of human life works better with a balance of feminine and masculine energies.
Individuals
We live in a competitive society. We want good, healthy, fulfilling things – a home, family, good food, our loved ones safe, a sense of purpose and achievement, the chance to do something that matters. To get these things, we have to compete, at school, in job interviews, at work, for money and bonuses, on the housing market, for promotion… So yes, we do need to be hard, outward, projecting, rational, logical, focused, firm, purposeful.
Masculine energy shows us HOW – feminine energy shows us WHY. It’s a cliché and a truism that wealth doesn’t bring happiness; equally true, lack of money can bring unhappiness. But it’s not the money or success – that’s only our HOW. We all know the trope of a wealthy man or woman, sitting in a palatial home, surrounded by fine art and expensive carpets, desolate and sick with emptiness. Feeling like somewhere on the road to achieving all their dreams, they lost something priceless. It’s true. They have. But not lost – perhaps, just buried.
We are emotional people. Whether we like it or not – and many of us don’t. In The Man Who Tasted Shapes, 1998, the neurologist Richard Cytowic showed that our decisions are not rational, logical, and purposeful as we like to think – they are, ultimately, emotional. Research continues in this area. Our rational brain plays, at most, the role of consultant. Even the most hardcore-logical person can never escape their emotion. It’s at the base of who we are. Our motivations, our WHY, is ultimately human, and emotional. It’s soft, inward, receptive, intuitive, creative, multi-tasking, compassionate, and loving.
If we keep the HOW and we lose the WHY, we end up tired and unfulfilled. We know what we’re trying to achieve – but none of us dares ask “What’s the point of it all?” Why? Because we’re compassionate and loving, that’s why. Because unless we’re dead, we care.
Society
Let the WHY back in, for a moment. Let yourself feel. Let yourself care about this: 50% of the world’s wealth goes to 2% of the human race. Most of the world goes to bed cold, hungry and illiterate. 100 million children live on the street. 17,000 children died of hunger today. And yesterday. Another 17,000 will die again tomorrow. And the day after. Yes, without the HOW there’s nothing we can do about this. But by all that is sacred, let the WHY back in.
Why? Because we can. We can fix this. “Handouts don’t work,” you say – yep, apparently so. And equally clearly, microcredits do work. We can’t say the HOW is impossible – HOW is what we’re good at, all we’ve been good at. But if we ignore WHY, we don’t.
By providing world class education, living wages, equal justice and universal healthcare for all citizens, we can create a safe environment that creates success. In a perfect “yin & yang” world, society should create a safety net that doubles as a spring board – compassionate and purposeful.
We have the means. We have the expertise, the technology, and the infrastructure available to take care of the whole world. What are we doing with all that?
Big Business
In its current form, the corporate structure wants the bottom line – at any cost. This environment encouraged the behavior of such companies as Enron and WorldCom, who found the devastation of others acceptable in acquiring their own personal wealth. The Alpha Male environment of our financial institutions, our banks and stock markets, is a recipe for disaster. Three key factors in the banking crisis were:
- • unwillingness to be wrong or appear weak (so you trust yourself against the facts)
- • an intensely male environment (this drives up testosterone, which in turn drives up excessive risk-taking)
- • rewards for short-term success (instead of long-term stability)
This has already devastated us. But corporate and banking culture remains the same, flawed model. And this is some of what corporations control in our society:
Media ~ Finances ~ Agriculture ~ Real Estate ~ Manufacturing ~ Insurance ~ Health ~ Entertainment ~ Transportation
Are you comfortable with that?
Corporations seem like monolithic powerhouses – but they’re not. They’re made up of people, each with their own HOW and buried WHY, and all of us need to return to our why. Otherwise, we’re not only purposeless – we are well and truly screwed.
Of course the masculine HOW is not the only way, however traditionally dominant it is. New management styles are emerging and many corporate leaders and entrepreneurs show profound compassion: Bill Gates, with the Gates Foundation, AIDS vaccine, and malaria research; Omidyar, with the micro-loans; Richard Branson, with Green Energy. Everyone’s a mix of masculine and feminine – and we need both.
Government
Governments are no different. Traditionally and still male-dominated, most maintain a heavily alpha-male environment focused on masculine energy – with all the pitfalls we saw in the banking crisis. It’s not a question of “add more women”. Women are just as capable as men of suiting up in masculine energy. It’s a question of revaluing feminine energies – in men and women. While our masculine energies start wars, snatch resources, and modernize the military to the point of potential self-destruction of the human race, meanwhile failing the duty of care to its own citizens, the problem is obvious. Yet world leaders who do exhibit compassion and offer non-violent solutions – King, Gandhi, and Mandela – go down in history as our greatest. Even Jesus Christ said, “Love your enemies.”
The World
We live in a patriarchal world, emphasized by our need for progress even at the expense of our Earth. Masculine energy sees feminine energy as weak, and meek. But we can make ourselves whole again, and we can evolve. And the meek will inherit the earth
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