Toxic Masculinity and the Disharmony of What We Call Gender
An aside: I am by no means an expert on the matter of gender identify or sexual orientation. This is just coming from my experience and ideas about what we tend to call masculine and feminine.
I have been thinking a lot lately about the true nature of the masculine and the feminine. I do not mean masculine and feminine purely in the terms as they are related in our culture and society, often to gender expression and/or biological traits. I am more talking about masculine and feminine as the opposing and harmonizing energies in the world. The yin and the yang.
I think the masculine and the feminine is a part of everything and in everything. As we are human, the feminine and masculine lives in each of us and given that we are extremely relational creatures, how our energies relate to others' mix of energies is important. If we all contain different arrangements of these energies, how could we know what is appropriate for anyone person. It takes a level of deep knowing to even attempt to understand what is true masculine and true feminine and how those two forces work within us and work in our relationships. There may be very surface and material ways we as a collective have chosen to reveal these energies and it would seem that some level of majority has dictated how we define them. I see know problem with that expect for how value and power dynamics have been arranged around them.
The world has upheld and demanded and overvalued the masculine. The scales have tipped and the balance is off and we each feel it in our own ways. Some of us who long for the balance seek it within ourselves, others through partners, and many through both. I don't think there is one right or wrong way but to truly seek the harmony of gender seems necessary. It seems right.
I am not sure if there were other times in history with great upheavals of gender and great disharmony between Masculine and Feminine. I feel it right now, powerfully in my own life it is true, but I also feel it all around me. Things seem wild or chaotic in these times but that is another energy simply asking to balance itself. Order has mostly controlled our world and thus has tried to box in the other energies.
This my take away from these thoughts and what I want to continually remind myself: Don't hold too tightly to these labels but do seek to know what those energies are and what they hold for us. I get the feeling it is very powerful and could bring great healing to our world. Trust your instincts.