And then something funny happened in the 60’s.

1960-philco-tv-ad

Disclaimer:  I attempt to make no judgements about the history discussed below being “good” or “bad”, but only attempt to examine how changes in our culture have affected the nurturing and display of masculine and feminine energy.  I am also grossly over-generalizing, and I don’t mean to say that this affects everyone or affects you.  I’m only commenting on culture as a whole.

Up until the 1960’s in the United States, men had enjoyed unparalleled dominance in most realms of life.  The result was an unarguable inequality between men and women evidenced by domestic violence, sexual harassment, inequalities in the workplace, and social alienation.  The feminist movement in the United States in the 1960’s was an upheaval of power that not only forever changed the course of the country, but also ripples through our daily lives to this day.

With a new sense of empowerment, women took charge in the workplace and acted out about abuse at home.  Compounded by the sexual revolution, the birth control pill, and the “free love” movement of the 60’s and 70’s, women took more control in the US, whether outright or not, than ever before.

To excel with a new sense of empowerment, women with feminine cores (for purposes of illustration) took on masculine traits like independence, assertiveness, leadership, vision, and drive for accomplishment.  Look back at Part 1 for the basic masculine and feminine energy traits list.

Paraphrasing David Deida, feminine women built a masculine layer around their feminine cores.

Around the same periods of time, perhaps in response, there were significant shifts in the stereotypical masculine model as well.  Men formed support groups and “cried in the woods togethe” (Eben Pagan); the gay movement in the 70’s brought further popular acceptance to feminine men, or a masculine man’s feminine side; and newly empowered mothers, increasingly raising children on their own, taught their boys to “be nice”.  Men with masculine cores found themselves unacceptable in this new world.

Masculine men built a feminine layer around their masculine cores.

(Over-generalization follows…)  So in the 80’s and 90’s, the US became a land of masculine woman teaching their daughters to be tough and their sons to be nice, and emasculated men who either abandoned at the first sight of challenge, or never learned how to lead, how to take responsibility, how to protect.

Assume for a minute, if you will, that someone with a masculine core finds the most fulfillment in acting from that masculine core, and a feminine core is fulfilled by acting from that feminine core.  Culture had evolved in a way that simply wasn’t working - wasn’t fulfilling - to the 80% of the population of men with masculine cores and women with feminine cores.

I’m not exactly sure when the next shift occurred, but when I describe it, I’m sure you’ll be able to think of specific examples.  In search of a quick fix, masculine men who had built feminine shells around their masculine cores panicked when they realized (however faintly) they were betraying their cores - so the built another layer: a masculine shell around the feminine shell around their masculine cores.  Still with me?

This is the “macho dude” who’s really a soft, sensitive, caring “nice guy” who’s desperately unhappy because neither of those is his true, healthy, masculine core.

The same thing happened to feminine women:  they built a feminine layer around the masculine shell around their feminine cores.

This is the “high maintenance” girl who’s really an anxious “control freak” who’s desperately unhappy because neither of those is her true, healthy, feminine core.

Can you think of anyone who fits these descriptions?  A friend of yours?  Parent or relative?

I will propose for the 80% of masculine men and 80% of feminine women that getting back to the core is where the TRUE GOLD is - for yourself, for your relationships, for your children, and for the future.  But I won’t say it’s going to be easy.

Enough for now, more to come.

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 for some background.

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