What Is Toxic Masculinity And Toxic Femininity?

While it is helpful to understand what the healthy expression of both masculine and feminine energies look like (you can learn all about this in The Way of The Satisfied Woman), it is also critical that we look out for the unhealthy expression of these energies in ourselves, others, our culture, and the world around us.

We currently live in a patriarchal culture in a masculine age where the feminine has been suppressed and vilified for millennia.

That kind of imbalanced recipe is bound to go wrong.

While we could dive into the long history of how we got to where we are, pointing to factors like:

• The need to control women for reproductive success
• The development of agriculture and the corresponding need to control resources (including women)
• The rise of militarization and women as prizes in battle.

The list is long and debatable as to where patriarchy began and how it evolved into the norm starting anywhere from 3,000 – 8,000 years ago.

Needless to say, not much has changed as we see women’s reproductive rights stripped away, resources still dominated by men (even today, women still only earn .80 cents to a man’s dollar), and women as unwitting victims in battle (whether in the home or as part of war). There’s more to list culturally and socially in terms of how the balance of power continues to be firmly in the grasp of the patriarchy, however, we are better off understanding the macro-expressions of these distortions if we take a look at how the primary energies themselves manifest when imbalanced.

While a lot has been made of “toxic masculinity” these days, there is no reason to further vilify any manifestation of the primary polarities. If the energy is being expressed in an  imbalanced way, let’s consider it distorted as opposed to toxic.

Toxic implies a hopelessness that cannot be righted or made healthful.

The energies in and of themselves are pure, and it is rather how we choose to express them that distorts them or allows them to flourish. Anyone desiring to create more balance is certainly capable of it with the right structure and guidance. And, make no mistake, it is possible for either polarity to be distorted.

We find both masculinity and femininity squirming into uncomfortable expressions given the current cultural climate. For example, recognizing the distorted masculine is easy when we look at the level of control over others exerted by men in power, or masculine paradigms like warmongering or harmful financial organizations. In addition, the distorted masculine exhibits severe judgment, particularly when its own concretized and immobile perception of “rightness” is challenged. We see this as literal judgment against women from organizations such as patriarchal religious or judicial structures, as well as interpersonal criticism with phenomena like mansplaining and gaslighting.

(nobody loves that 💩)

While some healthy expressions of femininity are commonly misunderstood, like emotions being labeled as “crazy” or intuition thought to be witchcraft, there are also unhealthy distortions of the feminine. Women often resort to more insidious forms of control through emotional or psychological manipulation. This is as seemingly benign as the infamous guilt trip we’ve all suffered at some point or the constant nagging seen in marriages-gone-bad. Or, it can be as damaging as the psychological and emotional manipulation found in codependency that leads to tragic consequences for all involved.

Because women are the bearers of life and pleasure, in desperation and distortion, sex can be withheld or even used as a weapon. In no way am I suggesting that sex should be offered in any situation other than consensual and mutual. What I am asking us to recognize is that sometimes, when relationships degrade, communication breaks down, and power is imbalanced, sex is used as a weapon to hurt or shame. For example, a woman can make fun of her lover’s body or abilities to cow them into submission. Or, she can withhold sex, making her partner feel unwanted and unloved. In a worst-case scenario, sex is used as the weapon of choice to goad a man into undesirable or even dangerous behavior on the woman’s behalf, or as a threat to further harm him.

While in a healthy expression, the feminine is a receiver of pleasure and a receptacle for life energy, when it is distorted, the feminine becomes all-consuming, swallowing up what is around it. We see this in enmeshment with children, when the child is seen as the sole source of love or companionship and so the distorted feminine obsesses over their every breath and movement. This can be as common as helicopter parenting and obsessive texting, or as dangerous as behavior seen in disorders like borderline personality or narcissism.

On the spectrum between healthy expressions and severe distortions are many variations. And, remember, all humans have masculine and feminine energies within them, so it is possible to see these distortions come from anyone, regardless of primary energetic polarity. While some of the more severe distortions result in physical, emotional, or psychological harm, some of the milder ones have the potential to become reminders of where we are still withholding the fullest and best versions of ourselves. It’s not always easy for anyone on either side of the coin to find rich, healthy psychic expressions these days!

We all must do our own personal work to heal, grow, and evolve.

Even though there is a lot of talk and study of self-awareness in current culture, self-awareness is actually the work of the masculine as it asks us to use our higher consciousness to overcome, release, or soothe our thinking mind. The way for the feminine to achieve a greater sense of balance and smooth out any distortions of energy is to tune in and feel into her intuitive, emotional guidance. The more we listen to what’s inside of us, and are moved by our inbuilt sense of knowing, the clearer the path is to releasing old, negative, unhelpful patterns in favor of enlivening and empowering the greatest feminine expression we have in order to step into life as The Satisfied Woman.

#feminineenergy
#masculineenergy
#satisfiedwoman