Can the Feminine Rule the World?
by guest contributor, Jaqueline Lapa Sussman, MS, LPC
“For my grandmother really had the gift of conducting the affairs of state. She knew so well how to organize and administer that she was capable of governing not only the Roman Empire, but also every other kingdom under the sun.”
– Anna Dalassena, Byzantine Empress (1025–1102)
Since the advent of feminism, women have come into more prominent positions of power and authority. In working with hundreds of women and men, however, both in my private practice as a psychotherapist and in the workshops and seminars I conduct, I’ve found that women typically don’t understand how to embody their natural “feminine” sensibilities as an effective force for the enlightened transformation of our world. Due to years of historical suppression, women do not recognize the deep wellspring of qualities residing with them, which can powerfully impact the course of history. The infusion of feminine potentials in all areas of life—including politics, medicine, education, religious institutions, corporations, businesses, the family, or even one’s most intimate personal relationships—is crucial at this time for the evolution of life on this planet. Our most cutting-edge visionaries and thought leaders are calling out for a vibrant feminine participation in our world. The Dalai Lama states: “Women have a special capacity to lead us to a more peaceful world with compassion, affection and kindness. And there is no more important time for that than this very moment.” Llewellyn Vaughn Lee, a prominent Sufi teacher, mystic and author, writes: “Women also understand the connections between people and the connections within life; at this time women are needed to bring a seed of pure light into life where it can create new forms and new patterns of interrelationship that are essential to the healing and transformation of life.”
For centuries power has been viewed as a masculine attribute, and the feminine has been denigrated as too “weak” to direct and guide our world. These prejudiced views having been indoctrinated out of a false historical conditioning, which holds the masculine to be superior through its impulse towards taking control, conquering, and competing. However, now that these precise qualities have driven us to the edge of global extinction, depleted the earth of her resources, created massive hunger and poverty, inculcated global wars, endangered many species, and created nuclear weapons that can destroy massive areas of population, we need to find a new way forward. The masculine is not negative in itself as it contains many positive elements. It just needs to be balanced with the feminine side of life especially at this crucial time in history. We need compassionate understanding, tenderness for life, warmth, yielding, softness, nurturance, loving communication, intuitive knowing, emotional warmth, and responsiveness— to one another, to the earth, to her resources, and to all living creatures. We need to have a whole new paradigm from which we view life by placing the spiritual intelligence contained in feminine wisdom at the fore of our consciousness. The Tao Te Ching speaks to this power: “The softest things of the world override the hardest things of the world.”
Sadly, men have been taught to suppress the feminine within them, thereby cutting off a vital part of their own wholeness. They fear that embracing and expressing their feminine aspects, whether personally or professionally, renders them weak, vulnerable and unattractive. Similarly, when in positions of authority, women tend to emulate male styles of leadership, thereby suppressing their own inner emotional depths and intuitive knowing. They don’t trust their natural wisdom, as they have been trained to give over to the prevailing male model, which they feel is a prerequisite to gaining respect and acceptance. Sadly, most of the women with whom I’ve worked, no matter how successful, have doubted themselves, felt uncomfortable being powerful, and experienced an inner void or gap that has prevented them from accessing their primal ground of feminine knowledge. I have noted that men who incorporate their feminine side, become leaders who are deeply loved and who create a deep loyalty from those around them. Women leaders, who do not fear utilizing their feminine attributes, find others magnetically drawn to them, trusting of them, and following their guidance because their genuineness is sensed.
Our fragmented way of valuing only the masculine side of life has failed to produce the cohesive solutions we need to heal our global dilemmas. Is it then any wonder that our world is in such dire straits? A new vision or paradigm lives within feminine consciousness. We need to first become whole within our very selves by embracing that which has been lost to us, the feminine. Only then, can we be the complete vessels, from which we can birth real and effective solutions to heal our broken world.
Clearly, both men and women need to reclaim the disowned feminine within their psyches and embody the power of the all-inclusive feminine understanding. However, women can more readily access this primordial feminine knowledge, since it is biologically encoded within them. A woman’s consciousness is more in tune with the instinctual urge towards nurturing, empathic connectedness, tenderness and fierce protectiveness towards innocence, which are precisely the energies that the world now needs. Llewellyn Vaughan Lee takes this understanding further in adding a spiritual component: “Women carry the instinctual knowing of the divine substance in matter and of how to bring this substance into life, because this knowledge is fundamental in the process of giving birth, in bringing a soul into human form.” Since women’s breasts give milk to feed her child, contained within her physiology resides the consciousness for sustaining life. Breasts are necessary for the perpetuation of life, yet they have become objects of desire, idealization, glorification, pornography, and titillation. Their exploitation is due to the deep yet suppressed longing for what is contained in a woman’s essence. Within each woman is a softness, a yielding, a compassionate love, an ability to become one with another and other essential attributes that nourishes and strengthens all life.
Psychotherapist Jaqueline Lapa Sussman MS, LPC has delivered lectures worldwide and has trained top-level government officials, corporate leaders, healthcare providers, professional athletes and lectured university faculties. She has been featured in numerous magazines and newspaper articles and is the author of the books, “Images of Desire” and “Freedom From Failure.” Visit www.jaquelinesussman.com