—
I recently received a post message via Facebook Messenger from a female mentor who inspires me to think critically. It was a link to an article titled “Full Moon in Virgo, 12 March 2017 – Time to Enter into Warrior Mode”:
“The March 12th Full Moon falls in the earthy sign of Virgo. As the energy of this Full Moon lingers for the next two weeks, we are all going to enter into a time of self-healing. Virgo is typically the sign associated with thinking. Deep thinking. Virgo thinking is often self-critical, however when channeled in the right way, Virgo thinking can be extremely enlightening. Virgo is symbolized by the virgin. This does not mean that Virgo energy is weak, vulnerable and innocent, in fact, it is the very opposite. Virgo energy is warrior energy. It represents strength and inner power. Virgo doesn’t need a man by her side, she has the power and strength to rise up alone. Virgo comes into her strength by tapping into that inner warrior that lives inside of the heart.”
This post caught my attention, especially after participating in The Good Men Project’s Social Interest Group on Parenting and Emotional Literacy. The two got me to thinking. Why are we men indoctrinated—brainwashed, if you will—to believe that in order to be a man, you must remove traits from your psyche that are labeled by society as part of a “feminine construct”? Why do tears from a man get him labeled as weak? Why do we work our entire lives to literally deny what is an essential part of us, our “female energy”? Stay with me here on this journey. Don’t panic: this is real.
Biology 101 dictates that men have an X and a Y chromosome. So, our sperm carries one of the two sex chromosomes, and it is the sperm that fertilizes the egg dictates the baby’s sex. This means that dad, although he can’t control whether an X or a Y gets to the egg first, determines your baby’s sex.
Michael Roizen, M.D., Internal Medicine says,
“[E]ven if the male sperm outraces the female sperm, the male sperm will die off if the egg isn’t in proper position for fertilization, leaving the female sperm clear for landing. Although male sperm is faster, female sperm are like tortoises; they keep pushing ahead slowly, hanging out, and waiting a few days. To have a boy, having sex around ovulation is critical, or the female sperm will win. So in contraception and at the beginning of life, being female is part of our construct, it’s part of who we are, even as Men. We are then incubated inside of a woman and when we are born….we immediately allow society to indoctrinate us in denying the female side of us and label it as ‘weak’.”
No wonder we men are so confused about our masculinity. Society’s brainwashing has labeled as “weak” because of its “feminine energy”.
◊♦◊
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, aka “Osho,” was born December 11, 1931, in Kuchwada, India. After graduating from college and claiming to have found enlightenment, in 1970, he introduced the practice of “dynamic meditation,” became a spiritual teacher and began to attract a significant following. I find that Osho speaks definitively on the male relationship with his female self which we are taught to deny from birth because our rooms are “blue” instead of “pink”.
“Women live longer than men, almost five years more; that’s why you see so many widows in the world. And women are more resistant to illness, disease. Women are more tolerant, more accepting. From where comes this strength? — it comes from their receptivity.” (Osho Quote 1)
Want to live longer? Become more receptive, listen with your heart and become more tolerant. These are good traits to have when you seek to impart love to others, and you desire to attract real love and care into your own personal life. Meditate more, be mindful.
I have noticed that there is a persistent and resistant anger in the world because our country voted a man into office that much of the world fears or despises. Our collective anger has risen and people, men especially are pissed, angry and furious about this injustice. Facebook is littered with angry MEMEs and indignations about this current administration (I know, I was one of them). We can’t change it, it’s done, Let it go, release that pain and channel it elsewhere into a positive effort. Unless there is an act of God or Karma rises up, the gentlemen in Washington D.C. has four years. Turn that anger into something positive, meditate and change what you can change. Here are a few options:
Support women’s rights internationally.
Make sure that our sons have a chance to become their whole, authentic selves unfazed by society’s rotten and destructive male-dominated attitude. Join The Good Men Project’s Social Interest Groups like Parenting and Relational Intelligence to unlearn the bad habits we have been taught in rearing our children.
Author and researcher Judy Chu and Good Men Project Senior Editor Mark Greene discussed the suppression of children’s emotional expression and the impact this has over the course of their lifetimes. How has the culture of male emotional toughness affected your life or the lives of your kids? Mark Greene says, “The way we, as men, have gendered these capacities as feminine and then stripped ourselves of what are essentially interpersonal super powers is a story I’m really committed to telling.”
Educate yourself as to how to have REAL conversations with your male and female children about who they are, who they can be and why they are here to bring positive change to the world and spread the gospel of love or above.
Help them maintain their innocence and their sense of wonder. That’s what a real man does. If you have children, and your little boy decides he has to cry, don’t be a dick and tell him to “man up” or “stop crying like a little girl” because what message does that send to your little girl? If you say that because your “Dad” said it, end the cycle with the last generation. It’s NOT appropriate to say that to your son.
“In three thousand years five thousand wars have been fought — this is what the male mind has done. I am in support of a matriarchal system. I would like the power to go to women because basically, they are nonaggressive; they are loving, they are compassionate. But it has nothing to do with biology really; even the male mind can become feminine. And the whole process of transforming the male mind is the art of meditation.” (Osho quote 2)
Osho said it, 5000 wars in 3000 years? It’s the fault of men. Period. Male-dominated society complete with the posturing and aggression that it brings has killed millions because wars are fought over stupidity, land, or perceived rights to something. And in these wars, our most prized god-given gift, our women, and children are the victims of these conflicts. Children are destroyed and wars, of every kind, unleashes the subhuman animal in some men telling them it’s O.K to rape and violate women in the most inhumane way imaginable. These animals had “mothers” and yet they do this to women when there are no laws? How sick is that male psyche? It is the same psyche that tells frat boys it’s OK to rape women on campus because they are slipped a roofie or drank too many Cosby cocktails. It’s exactly the same.
Our culture has said that this behavior is acceptable, it’s manly. Violence clearly is for people who cannot negotiate. So with that in mind, a higher intellect would be required to avoid war, to seek peace, to protect women and children. President Obama clearly is in touch with his feminine side, so much so that he said, “I am a feminist”. Want to be a better man? BE A FEMINIST, understand the issues of women, respect and revere them, if you commit to one throughout your life, give her all the love, protection, care and concern you can. And ensure most of all that they have “freedom”. Sometimes, as men, we don’t understand how important freedom and freedom of choice is for the women we love. Get a bonus at work? Give her “half” and tell her it’s for herself, not for the household (even if she works also). It gives her freedom to make her own decisions which may not necessarily coincide with your wishes on many levels.
Even women, to a large extent, have been utterly brainwashed and feel that a man is better in higher office than a woman. More than 70 countries can boast that a woman has held the position of president or prime minister, many of those in Europe and Asia. While the United States still cannot place a woman in the Oval Office. That says a lot about us as a nation.
“Women are more patient, more tolerant than men. Men are very impatient and very intolerant. Women are less violent than men. Women don’t commit murders; it is the man who commits murders, who wages crusades, who is always getting ready for war, who invents all kinds of deadly weapons — atomic bombs, nuclear weapons. The woman is completely out of this whole game of death.” (Osho quote 3)
Women are not in the “business of death.” From the womb, they are about life, improving their lives and the lives of their loved ones. Ensuring that the men they allow into their lives, into their bodies (yes, the “allow” us, they “choose us”) are worthy of that privilege and can live up to their ideal of what a “good man” is. I wonder about the women who are married to men who are complicit in dismantling the rights of women, children and the less fortunate. How do these women sleep at night knowing that their men, their husband, their fathers are profiting from war, or taking their millions of dollars and backing politicians who only want the best for the corporations and greed that they alone serve?
As Men, we need to think critically in our decision making, business and personally. How does this decision affect others? What will this development do to the environment? How will people’s lives be changed, for the better or the worse if we implement this decision or create this product? If I choose to engage another woman in my conversation about my wife or family, or my personal needs…do I open the door to a potential indiscretion if it is someone to whom I have become close? Or do I just try and talk to the woman whom I am committed to, who is committed to me and our relationship? Can I be more patient, more tolerant, and can I even deliver hard decisions (layoffs, ending a relationship) in love and respect? YES, you can really be a complete human, if you do not deny or seek to deaden the feminine characteristics that lie within you that we were taught should not be part of the male psyche.
The biggest, burliest man can agree with this: Remember how you felt when the woman you love (more than air) held your face in her hands, kissed you so tenderly that you can retrace every wrinkle in her full lips by memory, or embraced you so completely that you almost lost all conscious thought?
THAT was you completely embracing your feminine essence. Allowing that part of yourself to be vulnerable and under the auspices of someone else’s aura that enveloped you so completely that you knew it was “right” to let go. That you could not help letting go and in that instance, you gave her the keys to your bus, and she drove it.
The moment when you saw your first child, and you counted fingers and toes, and you knew that despite the person you are, the people you have hurt, the complete wrong that you may have done to other women, maybe including the one who just gave birth to your child. That you did this one thing right and you vowed to yourself at that very moment that the woman and the child, will be forever safe with you on board. It’s like that.
“A man is not of necessity masculine, a woman is not of necessity feminine. A woman can be masculine, for example, Joan of Arc or, in India, Laxmibhai. These women were warriors, great soldiers; they were not feminine at all. Biologically, of course, they were feminine, their bodies were those of women, but their very souls were those of men. They have to be counted as masculine. And there have been men — poets, dancers, musicians, singers, painters — who were very feminine. So soft, so round was their being that psychologically they were women. They may have been able to reproduce children, they may have been able to become fathers and husbands, but deep down they were not masculine; their psychology can only be called feminine. It happens — in fact, it happens more often than you will ever think.” (Osho Answers)
Think about this while I go get my manicure and pedicure. Yes, I really do that; it’s wonderful self-care!
********************
If you liked this essay,
subscribe to Franklin Madison, Author, In Memoriam
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please support our mission and join us as a Premium Member.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Talk to you soon.
********************
Photo credit: Shutterstock
Franklin, Nice piece. I agree with some, not with all. I do believe we all have a mixture of traits and energies that we get from both the masculine sides of our heritage and the feminine side. And I do believe there is biological, as well as energetic truth, that most all of us (with few exceptions) are either XX or XY. We can be all female and also have qualities of assertiveness, aggression, power, etc. that we associate with the masculine. And we can be all male and also have qualities of gentleness, receptivity, and empathy that we associate… Read more »
It is exactly this that we are resisting, another form of brainwashing, seeing the masculine as inherently broken, feminism as the cure, utilizing shame and blame, while holding feminism harmless when it is that very ideology that has caused, and is causing so many issues for men, so much oppression. It is the sugar and spice mentality, the assumption of men as perpetrator, women as victim that extends to ever oppression our boys are facing today. Again, why domestic violence against men is being ignored, along with a myriad of other issues from education to marriage. This, I’m afraid, is… Read more »