Feminine and Masculine; Masculine and Feminine
Stepping back as an Essential I/spirit-being from cultural definitions of who I am said to be—a female human being—has given me a position of having more perspective about characteristics associated with gender programming.
As I read the assumptions about females and males in various belief structures, most of them include designs for what is said to be basic femininity and basic masculinity. Even many large-scale spiritual belief systems state with certainty that feminine is receptive and nurturing, while masculine is assertive and action oriented.
Instead, while I acknowledge all cultural patterns about what it means to be a female and a male as valid and valuable in terms of the contrasts we’ve been experiencing during our spirit-person experiment, at the same time I see all characteristics as being far more fluid and flexible basically … in terms of what each of us Essential I/spirit-beings with body organisms can energize for our own qualities and characteristics, regardless of our gender.
Going back thirty-six years to 1970 when Jim and I married and co-created a partnership, we both wanted “something different” than what we each had experienced in the past. We started with a concept of more equivalency. Jim was tired of being the sole breadwinner, so my having a secure job and home ownership fit well with his focuses. And I was tired of taking care of all the at-home responsibilities, so his active desire to participate was just wonderful!
Throughout our lives together we’ve used a mutual evaluator of dividing up joint living activities fairly, within the context of what else was going on. As one example, when we lived at the beach in southern California and I was a daily freeway driver to my inland job, while I first made out the forthcoming week's menus and shopping list, Jim did the family’s weekly grocery shopping; I had a fixed work schedule and he didn’t.
After we exchanged one version of “the good life” for a different version of it when we moved to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern California in 1975, around 1977 Jim expressed his long-held cultural perspective that what males did overall was more important than what females did. Since I adamantly refused to agree, we had an on and off gender war for a year or so. I contended that what females were good at doing was different than what males did well—and both were significant and necessary in relationships. Finally, within that time and place we resolved the issue enough to our mutual satisfaction, and could move on.
Now Jim had trained as a cultural male in the Midwest region of the United States, in the world of competitive sports, engineering school, and the automotive industry. Then when he came to southern California in 1970, he developed additional skills in the areas of financial planning, investments, and insurance. Meanwhile, in my growing-up years in the southern California environment of sun and surf, the movie industry and aviation, I trained in general cultural femalehood including shopping, elementary school teaching, taking care of the home, motherhood, and relationships. While in college, in addition to classes and training for a credential with which I could teach elementary school grades in California, I majored in history with a minor in psychology.
It seems to me that girls in those earlier times had more gender-trait flexibility than boys did because we could be “tomboys,” whereas boys were ridiculed if they acted in any way like a girl. In those years, boys were also being programmed to grow up and be men who would provide for the family and protect it.
From today’s vantage point, in cultural terms I think Jim and I could never really figure out equivalency, but as Essential I/spirit-beings it’s an entirely different matter! Today, we still see the combination of our joint living activities as our mutual responsibilities, although we divide many of them up according to our past trainings. Jim takes care of our car upkeep and puts gas in it. He also uses engines such as our snow-blower and lawnmower. And he pays most of our small number of monthly bills. For my part I do our weekly laundry, ironing, and most of our household cleaning, correspondence with friends, social arrangements, gift buying, and catalogue shopping. As far as food is concerned, we usually take turns going to our regional coop once a week for groceries. We also take turns cooking and cleaning up the kitchen after one another.
Along with mutual living and relationship activities, there is personal time where each of us chooses what to emphasize and make significant. Over the years we have become increasing clear that our personal selections do have affects on one another, and we've become much more sensitive and considerate.
Regarding what has been designated as gender characteristics in our culture, Jim and I both feel free now to select from all of them and freshly interweave our choices into our lives in various ways at various times. On some occasions I gently tease him by saying, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it … I’ll take care of it.” (Adding more to the picture, in terms of our comparable sizes, Jim’s body is six feet tall and weighs between 200 and 215 pounds, depending upon his level of physical activities, while my body is five feet tall and weighs about 100 pounds.)
Nonetheless, I think it has taken Jim and I decades of involvement with one another, especially with our pre 1960s gender training, to get to where we are today as Essential I/spirit-beings who can now more freely choose from both gender characteristics, and to also decide which patterns to not use at all. Certainly, it takes artful awareness to do this.
I think many relationships are very complex. Even though one of Jim and my joint focuses is co-crafting easy, simplified, creatively satisfying lives amidst an increasingly stimuli-filled world, there are times that difficulties emerge because portions of our personal core agendas conflict. What then? We are both becoming more skillful and playful with these situations. And a continuous focus on Appreciation for one another and our lives together greatly helps!
Furthermore, I believe the River of Love flows within each person, deep down beneath her or his cultural programs and gender orientations … and all one has to do is focus that way in order to bring it more fully into one’s Life.
Link to Return to the Manuscript Welcome and Home Page