We do not need a gun-toting warrior with a vagina
By Dr. Carol Carnes
The Sirens and Ulysses, 1837 By painter William Etty
You may know her as Hillary or Carly or Elizabeth but her real name is Eve. All women carry that label in the subjective realm of our collective unconscious.
The allegorical tale of Adam and Eve has been misinterpreted, misunderstood and accepted as an irrefutable condemnation of the Feminine, which has resulted in the subjugation of women in almost every culture on earth. The rights of women were not included in the founding documents of America because we were considered creatures, not full humans.
Eve represents the bitch, the temptress, the siren that caused the Fall of Man (men). She listens to the serpent (the devil). She makes it impossible for men to control their impulses. Therefore, at the risk of oversimplification, she is the cause of her own rape. Some cultures will stone her to death for it while in the west she is humiliated, not believed and portrayed as a whore or a careless twit.
Because of the belief that she is dangerous to men, she is to be feared, denigrated, controlled and kept imprisoned in the darker recesses of our awareness. Hence, throw a Burka over her head (or a glass ceiling) and pretend she is not there, except to be used at will.
Eve is actually the Feminine Principle, the other half of God, if you will, that which is so tragically missing in our constructed reality. She is the organizer, the relationship energy. She includes all sentient beings in her decision-making. She is for life, not death. She thinks long term. She is the tempering force that the masculine needs to be authentic.
The masculinity in our midst is not the true masculine power. That is not to say the true masculine cannot be seen in some men in our world. He is the one who is balanced with his feminine nature. Barack Obama is such a man. He is strong and decisive yet tends to include and organize as a way to empower others. He is the perfect example of yin and yang in right relationship. His wife, Michelle is also perfectly balanced. A sharp lawyer, quick thinking and unafraid to voice her opinion, she is also caring, compassionate and eager to help the world’s children, who will one day be our leaders.
There are many such people but they are rarely in international positions of leadership. The fact that we elected Mr. Obama is a good sign that we are subjectively moving in the right direction. At this point it is not about what Mr. Obama has done or his politics, but the person he is. He is the unflappable feminine in charge of the powerful masculine within himself. Jimmy Carter was such a man, way ahead of his time.
The addition of the Feminine Principle into our awareness as needed and necessary is a threat to those in power. When she awakens in us, male or female, she demands the true masculine to be her partner. This means a laying down of emotional weapons and the opening up of our higher intelligence in dialogue and shared vision. The Feminine will not send her sons into armed conflict for profit and that is a concern to the unevolved masculine who thinks war is a good solution to human problems or more likely, a way to line his pockets. The true masculine knows that is no longer a viable option. He knows there is enough of everything for everybody and it is a matter of distribution.
The question is not “are we ready for a woman president? The question is, “do any of these women candidates have their Feminine power in balance with the masculine that they have had to adopt to get where they are?
We do not need an Iron Maiden. We do not need a gun-toting warrior with a vagina. We need a clear thinking, heart-centered leader who will consider the long term ramifications of her decisions. We need a president who will gather the collected wisdom of the “family” and make use of it, regardless of where it originates. The feminine is a ‘big picture’ consciousness.
During this time of climate change and the ecological breakdown of natural systems, we need the vision of “the mother.” Whether this comes in the physical form of a male or female is not relevant. When Adam embraces Eve as his full partner, we just might be able to restore our world to the Garden it was and could be again. We will never reach our true potential until Eve is allowed to take to her rightful place in our self-image. The answer is not either masculine or feminine, one to the exclusion of the other.It is wholeness in the form of men and women.
Dr. Carol Carnes: Keynote speaker, meditation teacher, mother of two, grandmother of two, member of the Leadership Council of the Association for Global New Thought. Spiritual teacher of Science of Mind. Honorary member of the Board of Preachers at Morehouse College, MLK Jr. School of Divinity. Co-convenor of three Synthesis Dialogues with HH the Dalai Lama and other world leaders in various disciplines.
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This article appeared at our online media partner, San Diego Free Press.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Dr, Carol,
Whoa! I am not much of a new age person, I’m more of a normal, white cave man who has adapted to living in the suburbs. As such, your writing incites an urge in me to vomit.
On the other hand, I completely agree that the human experience of life will improve on the whole as we encounter and address inequality, wherever and whenever we find it missing.
Rick
Allow me to add a few facts I’ve learned during my pre-PhD psychology years (sorry I don’t have the actual studies for the first few off hand, but you can look them up):
In a study of androgyny in the mixed gender population of Anglican priests, it was found that the males were more feminine and the females were more masculine.
When man and woman marry, they grow more like each other, and this includes their brain genders: there is a tendency to switch over towards their opposite: the woman gains dominance, and the male enjoys the freedom to feel and nurture. The happiest couples have more of a switch, as shown by psychological measures.
As women enter menopause, they move towards masculinity as their energies are renewed and they are released from the nurturing role of motherhood; in contrast, men of this age, released from their roles of breadwinners, become more in touch with their inner feminine after retirement.
“How is androgyny connected to giftedness and creativity? According to Silverman (1993), Tolan (1997), Sheely (2000), Piirto (2004), Kerr (1997), Kerr & Cohn (2001) many highly gifted and creative children tend to be androgynous. Jonsson and Carlsson (2000) observed that those who were evaluated using the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and scored as highly androgynous and low, undifferentiated also displayed higher creative functioning. According to Sheely (2000) few highly gifted people conform to gender-role stereotypes and therefore are more androgynous. Tolan (1997) has also found that highly gifted children are more androgynous than other children; they tend to reject strict gender identities. In other words, psychological androgyny should be considered a trait of giftedness.” ~ https://sengifted.org/archives/articles/androgyny-and-gifted-youth
rehalmers3… You don’t seem to realize that gender inequality is ubiquitous, which means you don’t even see it within yourself – so that’s where you should start looking. I say start, because it’s obvious that you have been leaving the work for others to do. You seem to hold the typical attitude of a young, unmarried, non-Anglican, and not highly gifted (sorry if that seems an insult – not intended to be) male. Watch yourself as you develop… you’ll be astonished. It kind of hits you the same way as the realization one day that, despite swearing you’ll never be like your gender-identified parent (in your case, your father) in some way, you’ve gone and emulated him/her anyway under the same circumstances. That happens to all of us.
Carol… maybe try to refrain putting the word “vagina” in the subtitle for shock value… even though the subtitle screams what chauvanistic males would, the mere word “vagina,” regardless of context, will get your male readers’ danders up. The issue isn’t physical gender here… it is brain gender balance. Instead of inciting gender wars based on reducing persons to mere body parts (your subtitle seems to imply angrily that that’s what all men do to women, which isn’t true), we should be getting past our anger and moving towards coming together in positive movements such as Emma Watson’s HeForShe movement. Let’s try to remember that men too are hurt by gender stereotyping.
A woman out of touch with her inner animus or a man without his anima is incomplete, underdeveloped. Those who halt their development at this point will always be looking for a partner “to complete” him/her. Such a partner will be leaned on heavily. It works if the partner is also leaning back with the same opposing force (like leaning standing playing cards), but such an interdependance hampers true independant strength… and is very evident when one partner dies. The more the lean, the easier it is for the participants to fall down. The more upright, provided there is still some lean (all marriages need a little needing of a spouse), the more stable the pairing.
“Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me.” ~ Vince Gill