male and female persona in everyone
Great thread…
I believe there’s both a male and female persona in everyone. In most people one of the two is dominant but the relative balance varies from person to person.
Carl Jung describes these as the anima and the animus. I find Carl Jung’s theory fascinating but I’ll not go on about it. But if anybody is interested in Jung’s theory and wants to talk about, please let me know ‘cause I’m dying to discuss it… wrote a little about it here.
Anyway… I think I’m someone with a balance closer to equal that most.
I’m also reacting to the environment I grew up in. It included a particularly rigid and harsh concept of what a man should be like. In my family a man was supposed to be an emotionless machine. As a boy, cross-dressing was, in part, an act of defiance, though I always concealed it. Women clothes were like talismans that kept me from a dismal abyss.
I do believe society is responsible for pushing people into extreme and unnatural gender stereotypes. I agree with ChristineRenee.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChristineRenee
Men, in my opinion, have been brutally conditioned by society for decades...even centuries! So much so in fact, that half of our humanity as a human being has been socially conditioned right out of us since childhood. Men really do have the capacity to nurture, to feel emotionally, and freely express that to others, and to laugh and cry at the same time and know the reason for it. We are taught at a very early age in life to not be that way.
I think this got particularly bad after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It was then that human beings really started being treated like cogs in a machine. The age of Imperialism and all the wars that came out of that also encouraged the brutalization of the human spirit. By the time I came along men didn’t cry they just killed and Charlemagne was only a fairytale.
Still, as longs as there are women there’s hope for men and things might be changing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melissacd
Recently, cultural norms have made it acceptable for women to express a very broad range of feminine and masculine characteristics. Men, however, are culturally locked within their masculine roles. Some, in the transgendered communities are starting to break through this barrier, however, I suspect it will be some time before that wall is knocked down.
Melissa makes a good point. Though I agree it will take some time before current barriers are broken, it’s worth noting that historically speaking the change in cultural norms for women is very recent and that it came about because women fought very hard to bring it about, and they’re still working hard to reach equality. It’s not possible for one group to break out of a polarizing situation without also releasing their opposite number. One of the best ways to liberate ourselves is to continue to strongly support women’s rights.
I digress… I tend to do that. Sorry… what was the topic?
Oh yes.
Female feelings, female thoughts, female desires? I aspire to liberate them in my life and everyone elses too. Maybe someday feminine feelings, etc. won’t be thought of as the exclusive prerogative of women and people will wear pretty clothes when they feel like being pretty. You never know, stranger things have happened.