For the past year, I have facilitated philosophy discussions at the ASHA Centre. These have been for youth workers attending Erasmus+ courses. We have explored: What is truth? What is authenticity? When does the natural become unnatural? And Is anyone ever truly evil?
But for the second and final round of 'Stepping into Adulthood,' I decided it was time to explore something a little more controversial - 'The Rites of Women' and 'The Rites of Men'.
'It's Time to Save the World and Reawaken the Feminine.'
Thursday Night - The Rites of Women
The first question discussed: what is the connection between the woman or female and feminine energy? The group quickly agreed that it was typical for women/females to hold more feminine energy and that both sexes held a mixture of masculine and feminine energy and different people had different experiences with these energies.
Quotes explored:
The repression of the feminine has led to a planet on the edge of collapse. The re-emergence is going to be a dance to behold' - Clare Dakin
For real change, we need feminine energy in the management of the world. We need a critical number of women in positions of power and we need to mature feminine energy in men - Isabelle Allende
During the discussion about 'saving the world' we went over several ideas: 'Yes, feminine energy was absolutely required to save us', 'no, we need a mixture of feminine and masculine energy', 'no, we just need whole humans'.
Ultimately, we needed to understand what feminine energy actually is which prompted a nice discussion and creation of this concept cloud:
We asked this question: Is feminine energy equal to motherhood?
We also explored these quotes:
Feminine power is silent, dark, mysterious, healing, nurturing. A woman can walk into a room and control it. She doesn't even have to open her mouth if she knows where her power is. - Iyanla Vanzant
The feminine energy itself is undirected but immense, like the wind and deep currents of the ocean, ever-changing, beautiful, destructive, and the source of life. - David Deida
Another question explored in some detail was:
Is feminine energy something known (innate, instinctual) or something learned (cultural)?
The group was quite split on this, some arguing it was mostly innate and some arguing it was mostly cultural and learned. For nature, it was pointed out that there are some obvious feminine organs and processes that define womanhood (wombs, periods, childbearing). For nurture, it was pointed out that expectations and lack of freedom for women to explore themselves have been restricted for a long time, so the feminine was just our current cultural construct. It was also noted that expectations do change from culture to culture.
Other important questions that came up but that we didn't have much time to talk about:
Is it wise to call it ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ and not better to use other terms, so that the different forms of energy and not identified with a particular gender?
Are there other energies beyond 'feminine' and 'masculine'
Do we need to save the world?
'True Masculine Power is in Decline'
Saturday Night - The Rites of Men
Bonnie Tyler's 'I need a Hero' was the ballad that introduced us to this discussion. We asked: is this hero a reflection of true masculine power or energy? Are the expectations of men too high and impinge on their freedom of choice?
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night He's gotta be strong, and he's gotta be fast And he's gotta be fresh from the fight... He's gotta be sure, and it's gotta be soon And he's gotta be larger than life -I Need a Hero, Bonnie Tyler
With this in mind, was true masculine power in decline?
There were mixed opinions on this. Some thought 'yes, but it depended on what you meant by masculine power. Was toxic masculinity part of it?' 'Yes, as feminine power has gone up, the masculine has gone down due to a sense of intimidation. 'Yes, men are expendable, so the power was always in decline. And 'no, we are all in decline'.
Question asked: from a more enlightened point of view what is the ideal man?
It was difficult, in the end, to make a list of masculine qualities without questioning if it was just an expectation of men (eg. the responsibility of proposing marriage to a woman) or a quality that was also feminine. I pointed out to the group that it was interesting we did not have this problem when we were making the list of feminine qualities on Thursday night. It felt far easier and less controversial to list and celebrate the innate traits of the feminine than it did of the masculine. (At least it did in this group, which was made up of about 10 women and only 2 men for most of the discussion.) A point also came up that specific masculine qualities only appear to be masculine because men had the freedom to hold them. Whereas for a lot of human history women could not be assertive, organized, or generous.
Several of the words added to the concept cloud above were added as the counterpoint or opposite to the word concept cloud we explored on Thursday (Eg. Shiva, yang, sun).
Conclusion: To Save the World We Need both. And we need to go Beyond.
Towards the end of Saturday night I wrapped our discussion by asking this:
Is there a distinction between energies – or are all of these just good human qualities?
Further, do rites of passage need to be designed for ‘all humans’ or separated into masculine and feminine rites?
The intuitions around the group were also split on this point. It seemed it was important that all humans celebrated and have access to all types of rites of passage, but it also remained important that certain rites of passage were restricted to, a certain group of people. There was also a sense that all the qualities discussed above were general human qualities that could be held by both men and women. At the very least it seemed healthy that all humans had an awareness of all rites of passage so that all processes had a chance to be loved and respected.
A big point that came out of this discussion was that open and honest communication is needed between men and women!
A further point of discussion that we needed to address more was the rites of passage that surround non-binary and transgender
References:
The Decline of Rites of Passage in Our Culture: The Impact on Masculine Individuation by Jerome S Bernstein
From Concrete to Consciousness: The Emergence of the Feminine by Marion Woodman
both articles in: Betwixt and Between Patterns of Masculine and Feminine Initiation - Louise Carus Mahdi , Steven Foster, and Meredith Little.
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