Highest Self Podcast 086: Why Feminine Doesn’t Mean Weak and Masculine Doesn’t Mean Strong with Sahara Rose

As conscious beings, our words hold power. Let’s change our language from feminine meaning soft and weak, and masculine being strong and assertive and instead use the Doshas to describe qualities to empower both genders.

-How the genderification of characteristics keeps woman playing small and men afraid to be vulnerable
-Why females are not weak but actually the most powerful life-force with warrior-like strength, which would be considered “masculine”
-Durga, the most powerful deity who slays demons, is a female
-Why we should shift the terminology to Vata, Pitta, Kapha rather than masculine and feminine to let genders be as they wish without judgement and labels

Let’s take the discussion further in the Mind-Body Balancers FB group: www.facebook.com/groups/1213662491998309/

Discover Your Dosha (Mind-Body Type) with my free quiz: iamsahararose.com

Connect with me for daily Ayurvedic and modern spiritual wisdom at Instagram: @iamsahararose Facebook.com/iamsahararose Twitter.com/iamsahararose

Intro + Outro Music: Silent Ganges by Maneesh de Moor

 

Transcription

Episode 086 – Why Feminine Doesn’t Mean Weak and Masculine Doesn’t Mean Strong with Sahara Rose

By Sahara Rose

Namaste. It’s Sahara Rose, and welcome back to the “Highest Self” podcast. A place where we discuss what makes you your soul’s highest evolvement. I was just listening to a video of a vedic scholar, and he was saying that inherently all men are warriors, and all women are servers. And I just took a second, and I was like, “Wait. What did you just say?” And he went on to explain that men have a masculine nature, and that makes them more warriors, and if shit hits the fan, the man’s going to be the one to go out there and get the burglars, or fix the light, or whatever the problem is. And he believes women have this more inherently “feminine” nature, which makes them want to serve the man and be adored, and to you know, they feel good when they’re giving to other people.

And according to him, and not just him, to many ancient traditions, this is just the way that it is. And I’ve been studying feminine-masculine polarity for the past ten years, and for a while, I also thought that’s just the way that it is, and I felt like I needed to embrace my divine feminine nature. So I would shy away from things that would make me “masculine,” like being too aggressive, or being a career woman, or you know, not having time for your family god forbid, because family is first, and family is the most important thing, and your husband’s not going to be happy with you, and you need to look good all the time.  And these are also thoughts that were planted in my mind from my family, which is you know, from a traditional country: Iran.

But really looking at who I am now, I have a lot of masculine qualities, a lot of things that I would used to shy away from because I was afraid that they would make me unfeminine, and if they made me unfeminine, they would make me unlovable. And I’m in a very beautiful, three-year relationship with an amazing man who loves my drive, and loves my ambition, and loves how I’m always working and creating things, and organizing things, and making things happen. That’s what attracts him to me.

And what I’ve realized is that the gender usage to describe these two energies is really dangerous. When we say being strong, assertive, a strong leader, a manager, a CEO are masculine qualities, we are saying that only men can fulfill those roles. And when we say feminine qualities are being soft, loving, artistic, creative, musical, we are telling all of the young boys out there with artistic and creative and soft beautiful hearts that they are feminine and they are females.

So what happens is the men who, you know, when you see young boys, they don’t know what’s masculine and what’s feminine. They just do what they love, and maybe they want to paint their nails, and maybe they want to dress up like a fairy, and maybe they want to play with dolls. But then suddenly that’s too feminine and they’re not allowed to do that anymore, so it stifles their creativity, it shuts down their emotions because they’re looking around them, and they’re being told that masculine looks like being this hard, cold warrior.

And then the young girl, she may want to play outside and get dirty, and have adventures, and play with the boys, get all muddy. But her mother is telling her, “Oh, that’s feminine, that’s not ladylike. You need to brush your hair, you need to dress nice. That’s not how girls act. Cross your legs, sit up straight.” So she says, “Oh, me playing outside, getting dirty, having fun, that’s for boys. Us boys have to sit up straight and look pretty.”

So what’s been happening in the spiritual community in the past decade is we are going back to accepting the feminine and masculine polarity, which is great to recognize, but I don’t think the terminology is correct. Because when we say one subgroup of qualities is of one gender, we are making people who are not of that gender not feel comfortable with exhibiting those qualities. And it goes both ways, and this is what is creating the divide in relationship these days. The men don’t feel comfortable expressing their emotions and saying how they feel because they don’t want to be girly, weak, feminine. And so many women are afraid to go out there and grab life by its balls, no pun intended, and just do whatever it means to set their souls on fire because they don’t want to be too masculine, ambitious, and scary for a guy.

So we, as conscious people—conscious meaning to be aware—why are we putting gender, names on these groups of qualities? It’s not helping anyone, in fact, it’s hurting us, in fact, it’s going deeper back into patriarchal times. And I get it, I was so one of those women who’s like, “I’m a goddess, I’m going to dress like a goddess, and dance, belly dance by the ocean, and I’m such a goddess.” And then I realized  me sitting around pretending I’m a goddess, dancing, that’s great, I love doing that still to this day, but that’s not how I’m going to change the world, and that’s not how I’m going to fulfill my dharma. I’m going to end up stuck as the dancer because I’m afraid of tapping into my other 50%, which is my yang, more pitta, more “masculine” qualities.

So what I’m suggesting is we stop using gender names to describe yin and yang qualities. And we start to use terms like the doshas—assertive, goal-oriented, ambitious, hard-working. Why don’t we call that pitta so it doesn’t have a gender on it anymore, it’s just pitta, it’s just fire. Caring, giving, supportive, loving. Instead of calling that feminine, let’s just call that kapha, which is the dosha, the archetype of the earth, because that’s what it is. And creative, eccentric, cerebral, we’ve also been calling that feminine, but how many guys do you know who are amazing artists and creative? Why is that a feminine quality to be an artist? So let’s just call that vata, because that’s what it is.

It’s dangerous for us to teach young kids that they can only have certain characteristics because of their gender. This is not spiritual, this is not conscious, this is patriarchy that is so deeply ingrained in us that it is triggering the parts of us that still want to belong somewhere. Because when we first on our spiritual journeys hear, oh, feminine qualities all look like this, therefore I’m going to be a female, and only wear dresses, and dance around, and be of service to my husband. A part of wants to say yes because that sounds like, ah, a release, at least I know what I’m doing.

But the point of this life is to figure out what you’re doing on your own. Not to walk the path of an already paved pathway that is going to lead you to a doom that is not to your highest nature. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t exhibit feminine traits if you’re feminine, and you shouldn’t exhibit masculine traits if you’re masculine, but just to stop calling them these two words. Call them vata, pitta, kapha, call them yin and yang, or just call them by the very qualities that they are. Right now I want to chill, right now I want to work hard, right now I want to be creative. Why does that have to do with our gender?

And ladies, don’t let other men or women shame you saying that you are not feminine enough. I see so much of that happening. “Oh, she’s not feminine. She’s just not in touch with her feminine side.” As a way to put ambitious women down. The fact that a lady is going out there into this still very much man’s world, and pushing through the glass ceiling, and making things happen is the most feminine thing honestly that I’ve ever heard. Because if the feminine is this weak little yin energy that needs to be cradled, and loved, and called beautiful every day, then explain to me the mother giving birth.

Have you ever seen something as warrior as that? The mother, screaming, in agony, for only one purpose: to give life to someone else. If that is not a “masculine” trait, I don’t know what is. So why is a woman in her most pure, feminine essence not called feminine? Why is the warrior not a feminine trait?

If you look at Durga, the mother warrior goddess in Hinduism, she is the trifecta, she is the Shakti, and she slays, and she rides a tiger, and she battles demons, and she kicks major ass. And she is Shakti, she is divine, feminine energy. So where have we lost this translation that a woman only looks like Lalita Sundari, which is more of the tantric goddess, but it no longer looks like Durga, who is just another side of the woman.

So this is why, let’s shift away from calling soft, feminine, aggressive, strong, masculine and just call them as they are. Because we have 50 shades of either side, we have men who are so in their nature when they are creating, when they are analyzing and building, and that in itself you could call that feminine because it’s very detailed, and skillful, or a lot of men love to serve their families, they love to cook for their families, they love to play with their kids. If being a good father is feminine, then our society is seriously messed up.

So let’s just get rid of using this terminology, let’s call it vata, pitta, kapha, yin, yang, soft, aggressive, whatever it is you want to call it, but let’s no longer teach our children that they have to be more feminine if they’re female, more masculine if they’re male, and let’s just let them be themselves. Because imagine how many more skills, and curiosities, and hobbies you would have if you weren’t told what to do, and what to look like, and how to dress, and how to behave, and how to act. Imagine the very parts of yourself that are repressed because of these gender norms. So let’s take them out of this conscious dialogue and let’s realize that both men, both female are masculine and feminine, and we can’t describe characteristics in the terminology of genders if we want to move forward in 2018.

I would love to hear your guys’ opinion on this, this is a really hot topic. I’d love to discuss it with you, so head over to my “Mind Body Balancer” Facebook group, we’ll discuss it further. And if you loved this episode, I would love to send you the first half of my unreleased book, “Eat Right For Your Mind Body Type.” This book infuses ancient Ayurvedic wisdom with modern nutritional science. It is not my book, “Eat Feel Fresh,” which is coming out this October, so stay tuned for that. But this book is now part of my “Eat Right For Your Mind Body Type” 12-week program, which simplifies Ayurveda, makes it really accessible, gives you meal plans, grocery shopping lists, recipes, everything you need to start eating the right foods for your dosha, for your mind body type in a really easy way. And also helping you deal with emotional eating so you can get to the root cause of why you’re not eating the right foods for your body.

So you can check that out on my website, on iamsahararose.com. And to get the first half of the unreleased book, which will give you a really good sneak peek, just take a screenshot of your iTunes review and e-mail over it to me at sahara, S-A-H-A-R-A, @eatfeelfresh.com, and I will send you over the first half of my unreleased book, “Eat Right For Your Mind Body Type.” I look forward to chatting with you in the “Mind Body Balancers” Facebook group, and have a beautiful day.

Episode 086 – Why Feminine Doesn’t Mean Weak and Masculine Doesn’t Mean Strong with Sahara Rose

 

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