Feminine and Masculine
_I: If there's a delicate topic in today's human society, it's the duality between the feminine and the masculine, between women and men. Some say that Man and Woman are concepts that define a person's sex, but not their gender. They argue that Feminine and Masculine can be embodied by anyone; we all have feminine and masculine aspects more tied to personality than to sex itself. It's a very complex issue, but a very enriching duality that is increasingly difficult to describe and define.
_AM: It is precisely because they give too much importance to categorizing things. From a universal point of view, the cosmos doesn't ponder over such things; the cosmos simply is. Everything is easier and simpler. Sometimes people mistake the fact that the Universe is Mind, perceiving the Cosmos in a rigid and mental way, yet your emotions seem more rigid than the cosmic mind...
_I: Yes, today on my way back from the pyramid, this was on my mind. I've noticed certain people saying that our conversations sound very mental, very analytical, and lacking the love and emotion of the soul. Why do you think that is?
_AM: The soul is energy, it's movement, and it can only be mobilized through experience. The spirit is vibration, it's the mind that gives logic to such movement. The question shouldn't be "why are our dialogues so analytical?" but rather "where are you seeking an answer from?" For example, Mathematics, do you consider them to be mental and analytical?
_I: I would say so...
_AM: Well, they're not. That's what you've been led to believe. It's not the same to attend a math class where problems are taught to you, as it is to have a problem and seek to solve it by yourself, asking for help. In the first case, mathematics will be mental and analytical. In the second case, mathematics will be emotional and felt. Why?
_I: Because in the first case, I'm not interested, and in the second, I am. There's a purpose that leads me to experience it.
_AM: There's the key. Anything we don't experience or feel related to our own experience seems mental to us, and anything that correlates with the understanding of our experience is emotional. Basically, because emotion is movement, and if I'm in movement, I'll feel it. If I'm not in movement, I'll think about it. It's simple. Therefore, judging the analytical or emotional nature of information is entirely subjective to what you're experiencing at that moment.
_I: Understood.
_AM: Like the topic of the feminine and masculine. It used to be objective, not subjective, and therefore there was no discussion about it. Today, the biological has become ideological, and the concrete has become conceptual. In the same way that the invisible became faith, faith became magic, magic became metaphysics, metaphysics became physics, and now physics has turned into quantum physics. What was once considered human became male and female, then became man and woman, which now, like quantum physics, has become entirely relative.
_I: So, our society is culturally experiencing what also happens at the technological level: once physics was the basis of everything, now it's quantum physics. Once objectivity was the basis of life, today it's subjectivity; once it was the concrete, now it's the conceptual.
_AM: And the question is... What is real?
_I: Hard to say, considering that the Universe isn't real either, but a mere projection of unity.
_AM: Well, considering this simple perception fact, and clarifying that the universe is a fractalization of unity, then we can begin to analyze these delicate concepts that aren't actually separated, but are two sides of the same coin.
_I: And where would you start?
_AM: As we've always done... Let's start with the origin of words, demystifying many of the preconceptions we have about them, and from there, we'll move on to understand the history of why they have formed as such, from the biological to the cultural and subsequently to the conceptual.
_I: Well, let's get to it. What is feminine and what is masculine?
_AM: Feminine comes from the Latin "femina," meaning "female," referring to the organic, sexual, and biological quality of a gestating individual. The same goes for Masculine, which comes from "mascul," meaning "male," the organic and sexual attribute of the biology of a fertilizing individual.
_I: Wait a moment... I always considered feminine and masculine to be subtler attributes, of the soul...
_AM: Oh, no. That's a common mistake, as over the course of linguistic evolution, many concepts have changed due to language usage and disuse. Today, you might interpret that a man has feminine aspects when he's delicate, but to say that a man is feminine is like literally saying he possesses female organs, a vagina, a uterus...
_I: Exactly the opposite of my belief.
_AM: Well, I'm here to try to free you from them, aren't I?
_I: Yes... So... What is woman and man?
_AM: Another interesting aspect that will make you rethink both words. Let's start with man. Man is a distortion of the neutral concept "human," which in Latin is called "hominus." The origin comes from "Humus," meaning "earth." It's interpreted, therefore, that men were born from the earth, unlike the gods in the heavens. The human is terrestrial, hence in all mythologies there are legends of men made of clay, of mud, born from the very earth or created by the gods, artists who molded clay figurines from moist earth. Moreover, "human" has another Indo-European root within it: "man," which means "the thinker." That being who was born from the earth and thinks, differing from the rest of the animals. In English, the word man recalls this same idea, a thinking being, born from clay that was molded by the "hands" of the gods (hands in Spanish have the same origin: the maker). Thus, the word Man is a distortion of "homine," a more general concept that wasn't specific to males but also encompassed females.
_I: Is that why it became natural to say "men" when referring to humanity? It's not that women were denied, but the old meaning was used out of habit.
_AM: Exactly. However, times change, and so does language usage, and this should also change. Returning to the concept of "human" would be more neutral since today "man" indeed refers to males.
_I: And woman, where does it come from?
_AM: You'll be surprised. But first, we must revisit another hidden etymology of the word "man." The sound "-br-" in the word man in Spanish is what specifically denotes speaking of a "male," as the sound "br" comes from the Indo-European "vry," "byr," or "vir," meaning "strong." From there comes the word "Virile," "virility," and the term "man," to define a boy. So, how would you define a woman thinking like the ancients?
_I: Normally with its opposite: "weak."
_AM: Close. Woman comes from "molleris," meaning "soft." To soften, to moisten, mollusk, soft, all concepts related to Woman.
_I: Wow... Etymologically, using the word woman to talk about the defense and empowerment of women is almost an insult...
_AM: One could say so. The English word "woman" also originates from "man," from male, but in this case referring to "wyf-man," an ancient concept to speak of a woman as belonging, "wife." Depending on which language it was taken from to refer to all women regardless of whether they were married or not.
_I: So all words related to women are inherently sexist, even the word "woman" itself.
_AM: Yes. And no.
_I: In what sense?
_AM: As we said, let's go to history. With 21st-century eyes, you can't judge 300,000 years of human history. You can only build the future by recognizing past mistakes, but nothing more. Discovering these injustices doesn't give you the strength to change the past, but to raise awareness about the future. So let's start with our history. In the origin of human history, in the first tribes we now call families, the context in which they had to survive was very complicated. Harsh climate, many predators, many dangers. There were very clear objectives set: to eat, to sleep, and to reproduce. Thus, the first humans organized their tasks. Think of it as a BBC nature documentary. The male had to ensure two things: his offspring and the creation of more hunters to assist. The female knew that the gestation process would take 9 months (in reality, they didn't know that, but they counted at least 6 or 5 months from when they noticed the pregnancy), during which time they were easy prey and "weak" to predators. Therefore, they had to remain in caves, managing the food brought by the male, who was "strong." Society was organized, then, taking care of women from predators, with males bringing food home while women ensured to make the family larger to have more hunting, gathering, and survival chances. Life was very simple that way. Basically, this system works in cultures that live day-to-day in relation to survival. In periods of cultural boom, of stability, men and women have the possibility to stay home, read, learn, study, and develop without the need to subsist. This generates equality between men and women, as they finally have the opportunity to develop their intellect. Civilizations like the Mesopotamian, the Nile Valley, the Hellenic and Italic, as well as other small cultures scattered around the world in America and Asia, achieve this equality of opportunities with the growth of wealth, allowing women to occupy men's roles and men to occupy women's roles. That is, men with softer and weaker tasks, and women with tasks of strength and power. When civilizations fall and fail, the systematic organization of survival returns, and women once again go back to the home and childcare, while men work. In the last 300,000 years, the periods of stability in civilizations add up to no more than 2000 years scattered throughout history. That is to say, approximately 298,000 years have been "weak" and "strong." As in your own life, taking a weekend course on "liberating patterns" will not eliminate the habit of all the years of repetition since the day you were born.
_I: It takes a long time...
_AM: Because cultures and their philosophies don't change because of an idea, but because of an attitude. Context, linguistics aren't changed by a momentary ideology, but by a balanced context that naturalizes the balance between the parts.
_I: You mean this forced intention to blend feminine and masculine, to change words, concepts, ideas about genders, sexuality, the role of women and men...
_AM: History is neither sexist nor feminist, men aren't against women, nor have women been against men. What there has been is a natural organization according to a context. The focus being placed today on the struggle of genders is misplaced. It's the same focus a schoolteacher has on their students: "You must learn this, period, because it'll be useful for life!" And the student will wonder, "I don't even know what problem you're talking about yet." Because you can't teach how to solve something before the problem arises, since humans learn through experience, assimilation, and adaptation to the context.
_I: What would be the focus to balance the feminine and masculine?
_AM: A Human society. Simple. A society that seeks to cover the basic needs of education, nutrition, and emotional stability. The rest comes naturally through freedom of being. A being who is well-nourished from childhood, who has affection and receives a good education (not teaching), is capable of solving any issue in the future. The focus is on humanizing ourselves, not "dividing ourselves into more genders." The more focus you put on accepting a greater number of genders: transgender, asexual, bisexual, homosexual, heterosexual, men who feel like women, women who feel like men, more and more, you'll find yourself increasingly farther from humanity.
_I: But why? I mean, isn't accepting diversity more humanistic?
_AM: Yes, it is. But from where are you doing it?
_I: In what sense?
_AM: The human is diverse, the human is by nature all things. There's only one biological truth: there's the male and the female, with their genitals, their biologically defined sexes. From there, recognizing this, you can do whatever you want. Because you're free, you can become a woman or a man, you can be feminine or masculine, you can be weak or strong, you can be of whatever sexuality you want. Freedom doesn't imply struggle, but acceptance. And many, instead of finding humanity in acceptance, all they do is continue to divide women and men into more things, more categorizations, more conflicts.
_I: So, precisely, diversity isn't found in differentiating and specifying each type of person, but simply in understanding them as another human being, free to be and express themselves as they wish.
_AM: The human is a vulnerable and empowered being by nature, weak and strong as a Being itself, because each individual has a tender and a rigid part. Therefore, each individual is both woman and man at the same time. Nature only separated the feminine from the masculine for the sole purpose of having greater possibilities for procreation and species expansion, but both have the same potential, and what you make of it doesn't depend on your sexuality, but on your humanity.
_I: So, balancing the feminine and masculine doesn't have to do with making men a bit weaker and women stronger, but making both more human.
_AM: Well, both were born from the Earth, both are the Earth, and that's the middle ground they both share. Many define the masculine as the aspect of purpose, of direction, and the feminine as the process of containment, of generation, and yes, they are organic and biological attributes of male and female, although not for that reason are they unique and determining of them. The capacity to generate and contain exists in men just as direction and determination exist in women. Because both are human. The next time you see a human being, don't classify them according to their gender, because it's the same as evaluating an individual's intellectual capacity based on the size of their genitals.
_I: The only thing capable of balancing the feminine and masculine within me, the man and woman coexisting within me, is to remember that both are humans.
_AM: There lies the only truth, there lies the power of creation.