The negative effects of the masculinization of femininity. Part 3 of 3.

Dependent, apathetic, disconnected children.  Adolescents and young adults are delaying stepping into a fully independent role in society while enjoying many rights at even younger ages.

I perceive the reticence of the millennium  generation to avoid entering into responsible roles in society, delaying entering into adulthood through various avenues of remaining dependent on parents and institutions for support, healthcare and living expenses, the malaise, apathy and lack of focus by an increasing many of the youngest generation– I see all of these serious issues as part of the side effects of the course that feminism has taken.

Feminism has created an environment where men aren’t needed in caring for children.  The way in which the feminist movement has focused on elevating women has resulted in minimizing, even eradicating the role of men in caring for and raising children; even issues of providing financially for children has fallen to the state, leaving men to be outcast with respect to having responsible behavior toward their children and the mothers of their children.  Men have in many cases been only the physical, genetic requirement.

This diminishment of the man’s role and importance in children’s lives has been a result of the style in which feminist policies have been inculcated and disseminated and it has had a devastating effect on children.

Focusing on the importance of being free sexually has unexpectedly resulted in an over sexualization of children – on one hand creating children as sexual beings far earlier than is healthy while keeping them as children with respect to when they need to be responsible. The Disney corporation, now a part of ABC, focuses on portraying young children as far superior in intelligence than their parents, while dramatizing even the animation characters as over-sexualized with large breasts barely fitting into the drawn-on dress that minimally covers the child’s hips. Additionally, presenting strength in these female characters as aggressive while diminishing any reference to femininity, interior strength required to withstand labor and required to be mindful and powerful creators.  While on the one hand it is refreshing to see the removal of all the victim/rescuer stories of past days it is problematic that the message moves from victim awaiting rescue to sexualized aggressive (read masculinized) child.

To project women as strong beings at ease with their sensuality, recognizing the power in their fullness would be far more effective in strengthening women’s rights and opportunities.  Women need to be able to embrace their sexuality and carry power over their bodies without having to choose to be either a shielded/covered up being or someone who is throwing sex into every equation… it is a matter of elevating the conversation, presenting power through an emancipated woman able to choose how she wants to be seen and represented in the world.  

Women’s rights have actually been diminished in this new sexual age, due to the masculinization of femininity through this skewed feminism…see the youtube below for an example.

The culture has disconnected the rights, and responsibilities for/to those rights, so that the adolescence period has gone from five years (13-18) to 13 years (13-26).  Rather than offering an opportunity to further develop skills by offering a longer adolescent period, this has resulted in a situation where  they are ill-prepared to enter society as high functioning participants. They have become accustomed to having no responsibilities tied to their rights.

Adolescence is a social, cultural construct.  It is not a biological stage.  In human societies the adolescent remains with the family to learn social roles, expectations, and develop moral concepts, cognitive skills, impulse control, and develop skills/work training.

From a neurological perspective the brain continues to develop and is somewhat plastic through 26 (28). From a psychosocial perspective the development through the Erikson stages is fairly plastic through age 24. So with those two pieces of data – by not tying rights and responsibilities together before 26 – we are essentially sealing the cognitive beliefs and behaviors to have these unlinked from each other, thereby creating a distorted sense of dependence and independence.

The cost of feminism on this Course, delineated in Part 1, and Part 2, is to diminish the importance of teaching, modeling, caring for children and helping them become independent in the proper timeline. It has distorted the importance of gender roles within the context of a family and a social group.  Thereby leaving both women and men unsure as to how to relate to one another.  (See Turning Me to WE:  The Art of Partnering with Mindfulness, Gineris, 2013).

The human species has one of the longest childrearing times.  This is partially due to the fact that the human brain is underdeveloped at birth. The style in which humans learn about how to live, grow, partner, and socialize is through modeling from the significant caregivers. Without a representation of healthy interrelating, whole, balanced yin and yang aspects of each gender in the social structure, how can a little human learn to be a multi-dimensionally developed adult? I wonder to what degree  this is the reason for such a high level of depression, bipolarity, ADHD, and suicidal thinking among our children — they aren’t given am opportunity to create a true connection to meaning, manage their internal needs with their social expectations, manage their will, understand and develop resilience and personal strength.

You don’t really see suicide in healthy animal populations, until and unless there is human contamination with that species – so it’s something to consider how society may be creating such problems through an imbalanced perspective of femininity.

With respect to humans, across societies women predominantly care for children; in some societies they do physical work as well as household work, depending on the need in that region and the level of financial need.

So, diminishing the importance of that feminine role, and handing it off to state agencies: day care, schools, and programs limits and truncates the positive aspects of a women’s skills in this regard.

Studies show that the brains of women actually are wired to tend and befriend in times of strife…yet feminists are trying to eradicate that aspect of a woman’s role –trying to create yang brains instead of yin ones…

    (See figure to the left) Women experience tend and befriend response rather than Fight and flight, moderated through oxytocin and other hormones. Secreted at times of bonding, nurturing, breast-feeding and relationships. Taylor SE et al. Psych Review 2000;107(3):411-29

 Those who want to control a society go to the child generation to actually program in what is seen as valuable, acceptable, and imprint the belief systems required for the society.  This has to be enacted before the development of moral thinking which begins to solidify around 9 years old…although there is evidence that moral thinking begins earlier than that, and that concentrated, practiced mindful meditation can strongly influence the development of altruism and empathy.

Hatred of a specific group has to be taught to a child.  Self-confidence, management of will and power, are all taught.  Through efficient parenting children develop from dependent, to independent, to interdependent; without it a child or adolescent can become stuck in an earlier stage of development and simply not reach his or her full potential as an adult in interactive and cognitive skills.

Due to the plasticity of the brain through 24-26 (or 28) year old, enculturation is clarified in the young adult years, making schools, and learning institutions opportunities for mind expanding or mind-contracting growth.  Depending on what is happening in those learning institutions.  If feminists say that to be a healthy woman you must have specific political beliefs and specific roles than feminism is diminishing the rights and opportunities of women.

Here is an example of how the feminist movement has lost site of its vision.  

I have been observing a sharp shift in focus in the universities’ presentation of fact versus beliefs in fields that are represented by women’s studies, philosophy, and sociology.  What I am observing is that universities have increasingly become factories to promote propaganda of various ideologies by either stating things are truth, that are simply belief systems, or setting up ‘studies’ to promote these ‘truths’.  Additionally the activities of critical thinking, and interactive investigation through dialogue are less supported and in fact discouraged.

There is a movie out called God’s not Dead  (April 2014) which  documents the inner attack of religion and the attack of specifically christian-faith groups on college and university campuses across America…resulting in over twenty legal civil rights court cases wherein the religious groups and students personal rights were harmed… this underscores my observation that specific prevailing beliefs are being offered as truth in the universities across america...resulting in the universities being propaganda promoters rather than communities of higher learning and free discourse.  Although the movie is a dramatization of these events, the style in which those of faith are attacked in general under the guise of intellectuality is ubiquitous.

This course of feminism, the masculinization of femininity, has resulted in a breakdown in the importance of teaching children, and caring for them.  This role has thus been taken away from the home and has begun to be placed in government agencies, day care systems, and schools.  We don’t efficiently care for them as a society, we are expecting dependence, and we don’t provide the environment that allows for independence and the evolution of consciousness.

To create a new more comprehensive feminist movement yin aspects of femininity need to be honored.

• All women’s choices for healthy roles in the society need to be valued.
• Attack of women to reduce their power or control them needs to be disavowed.
• Transcending the spaces where yin and yang interact to incorporate both in an equal way would result in setting right the current imbalance, offering a true path toward valuing the feminine.

This would result in an elevation of consciousness and the incorporation into leadership, and society, the qualities of compassion, collaboration and unity, all feminine, yin aspects of personality. Many of the answers to the current global dilemmas can be found through a rebalancing of these feminine, yin qualities into feminism.  The power of the feminine is best when it is balanced yin and yang, and that which is at the core feminine in nature provides grace, strength, and power to the solutions therein.

Each reader can create change now, by simply resetting his or her internal balance of yin and yang.  When you transcend the duality of aggression or victim, you elevate consciousness to include balanced yin and yang.  Balanced interaction begets more balance, the shift up is natural and moves instantaneously, it is quantum in nature. Your energy can effect change . Be the change you wish to see in the world.    Namaste, in love and light, bg

You can find out more at http://www.bethgineris.com.

Discover where you are in the Temperament and  the MAAPS section.  You can see how you see the world, and whether you have an attachment that is creating problems in your relationships.  MAAPS will help you to discern your insecurities and understand how and what underlies how you developed your insecurity driver (Money,  Achievement,  Attachment, Power,  Structure).

If you want to change your life, see how you can bring mindfulness to your parenting and relationships.  One being at a time you can elevate the way in which you treat one  another and elevate the consciousness on the planet so that equality, balance, and freedom BEcome the norm for all.  in love and light, bg