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It’s been a long time since I’ve made a long-form blog post, opting mainly to stick to my Instagram @idyllsofthequeen to make shorter form posts about thoughts I’ve been having.

However, today, I was working out, and I had the strongest urge to talk about this. I initially did think about squeezing it all in to an Instagram post but I have too much to say.

SPOILER ALERT FOR THE BARBIE MOVIE. If you haven’t seen it yet, and you’re planning to, maybe give this piece a wide berth until you have.

Last night, I went to see the Barbie movie, which I greatly enjoyed. It might actually be one of my new favourite movies. I was shocked by the jokes about the theorised origin of patriarchy. Ken remarks “apparently patriarchy is about men on horses”. Well, according to some scholars, such as Marija Gimbutas, that’s partially true, with the Indo-European ‘horse people’ conquering at least partially matriarchal societies. Someone did their research.

And I began thinking about Barbie. Barbie is one of the most archetypical ‘feminine’ figures in our modern consciousness and pop culture. But she is also, what has been coined in modern verbiage, both with admiration and distain, a ‘girlboss’. She is an ambitious woman who can be anyone she wants, from a mermaid princess to a world famous popstar to the leader of the free world. Like Elle Woods after her, she defies the idea that feminine women are incapable of leadership, that our feminine power, our wide-eyed, beautiful way of viewing the world is only good when it’s kept barefoot and pregnant in a kitchen. In the Barbie world, the powerful Barbies do not view each other as competition. They are sisters who celebrate each other’s successes. Each Barbie has her own domain. Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) doesn’t view herself as superior to any other Barbie, neither does President Barbie (Issa Rae). This is one of the things I love about women’s circles and feminist goddess spirituality. We all take turns to ‘lead’. There are no superior high priestesses lording (ladying?) over everyone else (I do believe there is room for the title of high priestess for our crones/matriarchs, women who have been practicing and studying for decades, but that’s a conversation for another day). The feminine is communal. Each Barbie is a leader in her own right. As the Barbie world is unapologetically matriarchal (a plot point which has been the subject of much controversy from people who don’t understand the point being made) the Ken’s exist, as women have done for much of our society (and still do depending on who you ask- this is a hotly debated topic which I have complicated feelings on) as accessories and helpers to the women in their lives. They’re not mean to the Kens though and they do not treat them almost as badly as the way women have been treated under patriarchy, they just mostly ignore them and treat them as incompetent, not as interesting as the Barbies, and don’t want to be around them all the time, prioritising time with other Barbies, giving the society a very Amazonian, Artemisian feel to it (I’ll come back to this later).

I am so grateful to Barbie for promoting the idea that women don’t just have to be mothers and housewives. While Barbie isn’t the best feminist rolemodel (which the movie comments on a great deal and pulls no punches in pointing out the drawbacks of presenting perfect, stunningly attractive, materially powerful women who never need any help with anything as the ‘ideal women’), neither is the matriarchal universe she inhabits in the movie which treats the Kens as disposable and ancillary the perfect society (which- this was the point that seems to have been lost on people- the point wasn’t that this is the ideal universe), it was truly revolutionary at the time to present the idea that women were capable of hard work and success and making their dreams come true outside of the home to little girls who before then and only had baby dolls to play with.

Now, here’s where I’m conflicted. Because for a couple of years now, I have been deeply sympathetic to the ‘tradwife/tradfem’ movement. I have joked that I ‘skirt the line between tradfem and feminist’ (although really I just think what I want and don’t care if people want to label it feminist or not). I think there is SO much dignity and power in the ‘domestic’ world. While most self-identified ‘tradwives’ strongly disavow feminism, I think it can be deeply feminist to say “I reject the patriarchal-capitalist ‘girlboss feminist’ notion that in order to have value in this world I must be rich, famous, high-earning, have power over others. I see power in the simple things in life, such as the ancient feminine arts of hearthcraft.” Patriarchal society historically has not only kept women out of the ‘public’ sphere, it has also made the ‘private’ sphere ancillary and secondary, just as women are ‘helpmeets’ to men in the patriarchal world, existing to hold space for men to shine, to assist them and cater to their every sexual and domestic need. My issue with ‘tradwives/tradfems’ is that instead of saying “Our society should elevate the feminine/domestic sphere to that of the masculine/public sphere rather than treating it as secondary”, most of them instead have resigned to “I am happy to be kept in the secondary sphere, I am happy to be submissive, I am happy to be viewed as a helpmeet and the secondary person in both my relationship and the Natural Order”. Because it’s the only framework they have in lieu of deeper examination- and perhaps capitalist feminine worldviews such as the Barbie worldview are also playing in to the idea that the domestic sphere has less dignity than the public sphere. Controversial feminist-heretic Louise Perry has written about this here. There needs to be space in feminism for not only women who are independent and career driven, but also women who prioritise their families, their homes, who don’t necessarily want to go to university and climb ladders and be ‘powerful’ in that sense. The quote “Well behaved women seldom make history” was actually talking about this very thing. It’s typically misinterpreted by modern liberal feminists, but it actually means we should applaud and thank our female ancestors who contributed massively to society throughout the ages just by nourishing their families, running homes and tending the hearth- the actual centre of society. While it’s a deeply controversial book and I certainly do not agree with all of the ideas expressed within, for a deeper explanation of this train of thought I recommend reading the book The Feminine Universe by Miss Alice Lucy Trent, a matriarchal-traditionalist manifesto which presents the idea that a) true traditionalism is actually matriarchal and b) modern feminism is patriarchal because it, like all of modernity and secularism, has destroyed the spiritual centre of society, the home and the feminine. In the chapter ‘The Three Gunas of History’, the author pushes back against the misconception that the ‘passive’ feminine is submissive or subordinate to the ‘active’ masculine, and states rather that ‘masculine’ dynamic, moving spiritual energy is actually submitting to ‘feminine’, still, passive spiritual energy:

A typical comment of the modern mind upon ‘matriarchy’ is to say that it must only have been patriarchy the other way round. But such is very far from being the case. As we shall see in a later chapter, femininity has very definitive characteristics that are part of the metaphysical nature of things. To say, for example, that if men are considered the active, forceful, even violent sex under patriarchy, women must have been considered the same way under matriarchy, is founded on a complete misunderstanding of the nature of femininity, both in its metaphysical essence and in its biological reflection on earth.

In ‘matriarchal’ or, we had rather say, a feminine society, women as the leading and most revered sex are revered precisely for their feminine qualities, which do not change whether in feminine or masculine societies. They are always the ‘passive’ sex in the sense of being the one less oriented to outward activity, and in this, in feminine societies, they are assimilated to the Principle itself, which causes motion without itself moving. This is not to say that women did nothing, either in feminine or patriarchal societies, but that, symbolically, the the qualities of serenity, peace, and contemplation are considered superior to dynamic outward activity. Or rather, the latter is said to depend upon and be always subordinate to the former.

This, indeed, is understood even in patriarchal societies, where, for example, in the Hindu Tantrik tradition the male principle (the god or deva) is considered to be the superior and therefore the serene, unmoving principle, while is female counterpart (or shakti) is his outward activity or energy. This is rather curious according to most later patriarchal thinking about the nature of femininity, just as it was to matriarchal thinking. But the reversal was necessary in order to preserve metaphysical truth and patriarchal doctrine at the same time. In Tibet, which remains closer to the original matriarchal tradition (polyandry was until recently practiced there), the position is reversed- that is to say, normal- and the serene Deity is female while her shakti or outward energy is male. Similarly, in Tibet, in the case of he complementary principles of Wisdom and Method- representing the Essential or Spiritual principle and the substantial or material respectively- Wisdom is female and Method male.

The Feminine Universe by Miss Alice Lucy Trent

Okay, now. Here’s the thing. I no longer align with Trent’s, or the Filianic/Madrian/Feminine Essentialist philosophies for the most part for several reasons. And I do not believe the masculine principle is subservient to the feminine one in any meaningful way, I believe they both serve each other. But the above paragraph makes much more sense to me than the highly confused and inconsistent mishmash of Abrahamic, Taoist, Buddhist and Hindu ideas from new age ‘divine masculine and feminine polarity’ gurus that are all over the internet nowadays. We’re told masculinity is the active principle and that the feminine is passive. Okay, sure. This comes from both Eastern and Western metaphysics. But they’ll then use this to justify female submission, stating that women should be feminine (passive) and submit to a masculine man (active). I disagree with this reasoning based on the fact that I agree with the above quote, letting a man actively do things for you so you can ‘rest in your feminine’ (a commonly used phrase in the polarity spaces) doesn’t necessarily imply submission (if a wife asks her husband to drive her somewhere and he does so because he loves her and he views it as his role to serve her in that way, in a typically masculine role, who is really ‘submitting’ to who in this scenario? Is she ‘submitting’ by being the passenger [passive] even though she’s the one effectively being chauffeured? To expand this idea even further, is a powerful politician or member of a royal family submitting to their chauffeur or bodyguard?). But then they’ll also use Hindu language, in which the masculine is passive and the feminine is active, to propagate their ideas about femininity and masculinity. Basically, they want masculinity and the male God to be the central, original principle, ‘Source’, to which femininity, earth energy, the Goddess, is dependent on, but they also want masculinity to be seen as active and dynamic and creative whilst femininity is seen as passive and something that doesn’t do much in the world so that they can justify the dogma of feminine submission and discouraging women from having identities and jobs outside of the home as well as justifying the idea, as seen in places like Aristotelian philosophy, that the male/masculine is the creative principle and the female/feminine is the passive soil that receives the male seed (which has now been entirely scientifically debunked, by the way). You can’t have it both ways. At least the feminine essentialist metaphysics are consistent: the original principle, ‘Source’, is feminine and ‘Activity’ is masculine, which, as the quote points out, is also a feature of Tibetan Buddhist metaphyiscs. The divine masculine arises from the divine feminine to be a protector and a builder for Her. This is similar to Western occultism and duotheistic neopaganism, such as Wicca, in which the Earth Mother/Lunar Mother is primordial and gives birth to the Solar Son. Despite the codification of this in to a system of metaphysics being a thing from the previous century or so, though, this is based on various ideas such as Isis and Horus, Modron and Mabon, and various other Divine Mother/Divine Son dyads. Even an inscription on the altar of Salerno Cathedral reads “Darkness preceded Light and She is Mother”, lending further justification for the Western occultist idea of masculine Light arising from feminine Darkness. I believe various theosophists taught this. Thought Blavatsky may not have specifically said that darkness was feminine and light was masculine, she believed that light was temporary and the Absolute, aka the Void, Darkness from which we all come, was our true Source. Darkness is typically associated with the feminine (womb, encompassing) and light (phallic, penetrating) with the masculine. The difference, though, between this and many other forefathers and foremothers of what would become the Western occult tradition, is that here light, not darkness, is associated with Matter. From misogynistic Greek philosophers onward, the polarities were always as follows: Light/dark, Spirit/matter, Masculine/feminine, with the latter being inferior to the former (hence my deliberate capitalization). But if you ask me, it makes infinitely more sense that we may associate light as temporary matter rather than darkness, our point of origin, the Cosmic Womb from which we all arise and will return (this is not to say I view matter as evil, I’m not Gnostic, and I absolutely see the reasoning for linking matter with the feminine when we consider Mother Earth).

Celiticists Caitlin and John Matthews, in their book Ladies of the Lake which seeks to decode the myths of the Arthurian women, says this, which in turn cites renowned mother of Western occultism, Dion Fortune:

But let us first take the accusation that the Arthurian women are there to empower men. To be sure, it is the knights who go out on quest and adventure and the women who stay home, save for a few exceptions. The women, however, seem to be remnants of an earlier regime. They appear to be priestesses and empowerers in a specific sense. They bring healing, insight, challenge and difficulty as well as empowerment. Indeed, sometimes they cause disempowerment, as Morgan and Nimue do. All of the Arthurian knights are empowered by women, and some by faery or otherwordly women: Gawain by Ragnell, Percival by the Nine Witches of Gloucester and Lancelot by the Lady of the Lake herself.

There is a great deal of objection in feminist circles to this mythic trend of women empowering men, wherever it is found. However, to pretend otherwise is to change the mythic function of men and women. It was the esotericist Dion Fortune who coined an aphorism which we should all take to heart: ‘That which is latent on the outer is potent in the inner; and that which is potent in the outer is latent in the inner.’

She further glosses this cryptic statement in the following way: women’s natures are latent in the everyday world and potent in the inner realms, while men’s natures are potent in the everyday world and latent in the inner realms. This statement does not take in to account the circuitry of gay or bisexual people, which will sometimes differ radically from this model, but works as an excellent rule of thumb for everyone else. It explains a lot that we have attempted to grapple with in terms of gendural roles and functions. Women are often perceived to be passive in the realms of everyday life and powerful in the magical realms: the many metaphors of women as dangerous, as witches and as enchantresses are scattered throughout world cultures. Men, on the other hand, seem to have their primacy in the everyday world, but be less happy int heir relations with the inner worlds of magic, the psyche or the imagination. This statement is not a fixed law but a general rule which has many exceptions. Dion Fortune’s writing derived from practical and ethical magical experience, an experience which is not commonly shared by many men or women today, because our society has jettisoned its spiritual and psychic values.

We are currently acknowledged to be living within a ‘patriarchal’ culture wherein the inner world of imagination, art, magic and the psyche plays little or no part. It is so negligible that there are few social structures wherein such practices are considered ‘respectable’ modes of life. However, the patriarchal world cannot live without the inspiration which the matriarchal world can supply. Women tend to power-house male personalities and institutions without a second thought. They give give the necessary moisture to what may be an essentially dry idea. This analogy also works the other way: the instinctive and often unrealized nature of women needs the pragmatism of men. Too much Yin and not enough Yang leaves projects floating aimlessly about.

This is not to say that women are aimless and only men have direction. We also utilize the internal dynamo within each of us to supply this need. A woman may conceive an idea from a dream, but draw on her practical abilities to project and manifest it, just as a man may draw on his imagination to fuel a project he wishes to promote.

Ladies of the Lake by Caitlin & John Matthews

While the above may not be necessarily in line with much of feminism, which has spent decades understandably pushing back on the philosophical idea that women only exist as ‘muses’ that inspire male dynamo, it is mostly in line with the feminine essentialist philosophy as explained by Trent. I recently read the comment made by a masculine/feminine polarity proponent that ‘men lead on the physical plane, women lead on the spiritual plane’. Okay, if we amend this to be about masculine and feminine and not necessarily just men and women so we can say that women can use their masculine to lead physically and men can use their feminine to lead spiritually, I can understand this although I still think it may be slightly more nuanced than even that. But in order to believe this, you have to drop the idea pushed by many of the same people as the one who made the comment that women/the feminine ALWAYS submits and men/the masculine ALWAYS leads. I recently had this discussion with some dear sisters of mine from one of my divine feminine circles/gatherings. These women are excellent, effective, devoted, wise spiritual leaders even if they aren’t particularly interested in leadership in the mundane world so I couldn’t understand why they’d reduced the feminine to ALWAYS following and ALWAYS submitting. Even if I were to concede that its the masculine’s job to lead in the boring realm of muggle politics and commerce, why do some women have such a hard time, even in this feminine-dominated world of pagan and earth based spirituality, claiming the reverse? Because women have a hard time claiming power and leadership at all, because society has told us we’re domineering, emasculating bitches if we do so. Ideally I’d like to remove ‘submission’ and gendered leadership from the conversation entirely because there are women who do extremely well in the mundane world and men who do extremely well in the mystical world, but if we’re going to claim the feminine submits in one realm its only fair and logical to say the masculine submits in the other- but then this has been an imbalance we’ve seen in Christianity and more broadly history since the Greeks in which we’re told the ‘outside world’ is a man’s domain and the home is the woman’s domain, but then for some reason the man still holds the title of ‘head of the household’ and the woman is expected to submit to her husband in her own supposed ‘domain’. Inconsistent. If the home is the feminine domain she is the leader of it, otherwise its a wholly illogical and inconsistent position to take. I wish the women who believe strongly in gendered domains and polarity could, at the very least, stand in their power and claim leadership over the domain that’s supposedly ‘theirs’. If men are supposed to ‘lead’ all the time do you really want him telling you what to do with your womb healing goddess retreats because you’re too much of a scatterbrained, illogical woman to run your own business? Hell no. I doubt it. Similarly, to bring me back to an earlier paragraph about tradwives, I wish those women would feel comfortable taking the reigns of the home and hearth rather than acting as if they’re just borrowing them from men.

But, to circle back around, where does this leave Barbie?

On the one hand, Barbie is an archetypal, emblematic avatar of femininity. On the other hand, she is certainly not passive- neither in the patriarchal sense of ‘submissive’, nor the more nuanced, non-patriarchal sense. She is active. She is ambitious. She has had almost every career you can think of. Does this make her a masculine figure? Well, I’d wager if I asked many of the people mentioned thus far in this article, they’d say yes, albeit in slightly different ways. The tradfems, tradmascs and the ‘divine tantric polarity teachers’ who tend to hold more conservative views about gender roles would say ‘Yes, Barbie is a masculine woman, and part of the feminist agenda to masculinise women and emasculate men’. The Madrian matriarchal traditionalists I have studied extensively would say ‘Barbie is beautiful and can at times be an example of traditional femininity when in her guise as Queen, but is part of the same modern patriarchal paradigm which seeks to masculinise women and prioritise the masculine agora over the feminine hearth, therefore Barbie is a masculine figure in drag (and also not Traditional in other senses of the word)’. The more progressive types who teach that we all have masculine and feminine within us might say ‘Barbie is both feminine and masculine and teaches women that they can be both outwardly feminine but utilise their inner masculine to be successful political leaders, and this is a good thing’. If I had to align with any of these perspectives, it would be that last one, but I think, in my usual fashion, there is more to consider here.

If we are to consider the perspective of Caitlin Matthews, John Matthews and Dion Fortune that the feminine is more active than the masculine in the spiritual realms but less active than the masculine in the physical realm, this still works. As the movie points out when Barbie comes to the ‘real world’, everything here is turned on its head. Men are in most of the leadership positions whereas women tend to be disempowered (again, I know this is a highly debated topic and there are arguments I will consider that this is no longer the case in the modern Western world, but for the sake of argument lets go with this). In her realm, a realm which exists within the imagination (refer back to the Ladies of the Lake quote), women are leaders and men are helpmeets. So, the Barbies, being leaders on the inner realms, are still metaphysically ‘feminine’. Not to mention, the way the Barbie world functions is more feminine than masculine, with no competition or hierarchy between the Barbies, and plenty of time for parties and resting in between the hard work of being politicians, scientists, authors, doctors, what have you. It doesn’t abide by the same strict, hierarchical rules of Our World that are sometimes necessary in order to keep everything running smoothly and efficiently, it is more fun, playful, feminine. A young woman who dreams of succeeding in a male-dominated field may have to call on her inner masculine in the ‘real world’ to help her manifest her dream in to material reality as the Matthews’ quote says, but make no mistake, it was the feminine imaginative realm of Barbie, the World Soul, the Realm of all abstract Ideas (to get in to some Platonism), that gave her the dream to begin with. This, if you want, can be compared to Jungian ideas of animus/anima and the Yin/Yang of the Tao. Each lives within the Other.

But moving beyond even that, is there such a thing as the Active Feminine at all? It may be a rarer archetype, but I’d argue yes, using quotes from Jean Shinoda Bolen’s amazing Goddesses In Everywoman (which I believe every woman should read but ESPECIALLY women trying to navigate this femininity conversation especially), focusing on the Virgin Goddess section specifically.

The virgin goddess aspect is that part of a woman that is unowned by or “unpenetrated” by a man—that is untouched by her need for a man or need to be validated by him, that exists wholly separate from him, in her own right. When a woman is living out a virgin archetype, it means that a significant part of her is psychologically virginal, not that she is physically and literally virginal. 

The term virgin means undefiled, pure, uncorrupted, unused, untilled, untouched and unworked on “by man,” as in virgin soil, virgin forest; or not previously processed, as in virgin wool. Virgin oil is oil made from the first pressing of olives or nuts, extracted without heat (metaphorically, untouched by the heat of emotion or passion). Virgin metal is what occurs in native form, and is unalloyed and unmixed, as in virgin gold. 

Within a religious system and an historical period dominated by male gods, Artemis, Athena, and Hestia stand out as exceptions. They never married, never were overpowered, seduced, raped, or humiliated by male deities or mortals; They stayed “intact,” inviolate. In addition, only these three of all the gods, goddesses, and mortals were unmoved by the otherwise irresistible power of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, to inflame passion and stir erotic yearnings and romantic feelings. They were not moved by love, sexuality, or infatuation.

Goddesses In Everywoman by Jean Shinoda-Bolen

Sound familiar?

While Barbie does have a boyfriend in Ken, she is Complete In Herself. She is not motivated by romantic love and the feminine and sisterhood play much bigger roles in her life than her relationship with Ken, the same with all the Barbies. Ergo, I posit that the Barbies represent a modern incarnation of potentially the most ancient (according to some sources) part of the female psyche of all time: the Virgin. Like Artemis and her nymphs, Barbie would rather party with the girls all night than go on a romantic date with Ken.

I believe the healthiest women are able to balance multiple feminine archetypes. Most women in our world will not be celibate their entire lives. Most will desire romantic love and prioritise it at various times in their life, because romantic love and partnership, the creation of a family with a partner by your side to help you provide for that baby, is a normal thing to want. On a species level, a societal level, men and women do need each other. We both exist for a reason. But the Virgin Goddess archetype teaches us that we are complete without a romantic relationship with a man. We do not need to ‘meet our king’ to be ‘in our feminine’ and complete. Before our ancestors figured out the male role in reproduction, it’s fair to assume they may have conceptialised the Goddess as parthenogenic, self-conceiving, not half of a polarity that we often see today in many spiritual systems (outside wholly masculine ones like the Abrahamic monotheisms and wholly feminine/feminist ones like Madrianism/Deanism and the Dianic tradition, etc). At the end of the Barbie movie, the Kens have to learn that they can have their own independent identities outside of their relationships with the Barbies, mirroring the lesson women (moreso than men) have had to come to in the real world. There are some Christian scholars who theorise that the true ‘curse of Eve’ is that she will default to hyperfocusing on relationships at the expense of everything else, while men do the same with work. This is reflected in the world. How many women do we know who have lost themselves to love? Myself being one of them, and it’s a lesson I’m still learning- that as much as I’d love a husband, I am still complete in myself without one, and I do not need a man to save me before I can start properly living my life. I have my sisters. I have my family. I have the Goddess. I have Me. Men on the other hand often lose themselves in ambition, the pursuit of wealth and power. This is the curse of Eve and the curse of Adam. The wounded feminine and the wounded masculine.

“It is so simple, but never easy for you. By returning. By turning back to me. By giving up your ways of power and manipulation and just come back to me.” Jesus sounded like he was pleading. “Women, in general, will find it difficult to turn from a man and stop demanding that he meets their needs, provides security, and protects their identity, and return to me. Men, in general, find it very hard to turn from the works of their hands, their own quests for power and security and significance, and return to me.”

The Shack

Moving away from relationships and back on to the Barbies being active, ambitious women who are still ‘in their feminine’, let’s explore another quote from Goddesses In Everywoman.

Subjective feelings and dream figures help differentiate whether a woman’s active focus is associated with a masculine animus or with a feminine goddess pattern. For example, if a woman feels as if the assertive part of herself is something alien to who she is—that is, like a male in herself on whom she calls in difficult situations requiring her to “be tough” or “think like a man” (neither of which she feels “at home” doing)—then it is her animus that is rising to the occasion and helping her. Much like an auxiliary engine is called on when more power is needed, the animus is held in reserve. This reserve mode is especially true of women in whom Hestia, Hera, Demeter, Persephone, or Aphrodite are the strongest patterns. 

But when Athena and Artemis are well-developed aspects of her personality, a woman may naturally be assertive, think well, know what she wants to achieve, or compete comfortably. These qualities, far from being alien, feel like inherent expressions of who she is as a woman, and not like the qualities of a masculine animus that does it “for her.” 

When I was working out today, I felt myself becoming Epona, the horse goddess, and instead of running on my treadmill I was riding my horse incredibly fast through pre-Christian Europe. I do not feel like my desire to exercise, for instance, is me ‘connecting with my inner masculine’, although I completely understand why some women may feel like theirs is, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. But for me, the feminine is that nuanced and multifaceted (like Barbie) that there is not always the need to call on my animus to help me step in to active, ‘doing’ power (though I did recently meet my inner masculine face-to-face whilst journeying, and I do still call on him sometimes). I say this as a woman who has been ‘resting in my feminine’ to the extent that it was actively hindering my life and progression in to competent adulthood for years. I am tired of waiting for a man to rescue me, and that includes my own ‘inner masculine’ when I feel strongly that, for the most part, I can stay in my ‘feminine energy’ and become a more active participant in the world. People have said a couple of times, when complimenting my intelligence, that this is my ‘inner masculine’. I find this to be somewhat offensive though I know they mean well. Feminine women can be scholarly, bookish, intelligent, academic, did Belle tell you people nothing?

When I need to call upon my motivation, my inner dynamo or active strength, rather than calling on my inner masculine like most women I know do (and that is completely fine), I find it comes more naturally to me, and what I know to be true about the diversity of feminine archetypes, to call on my inner Huntress. I typically conceptualise this in the context of the goddess Artemis (as Goddesses In Everywoman does), but last weekend at our Welsh goddess retreat, we explored this archetype through Blodeuwedd, the demure flower maiden who finds her power to change her circumstances that she didn’t ask for and becomes the owl, the huntress of the night.

Grief and fear cannot rule you; let them be your faithful servants, protective of their mistress. Loss serves a huntress like fuel serves fire.

Mass Effect Andromeda

In conclusion: Our map of mythopoetic memory gives us so many different kinds of masculinity and femininity that I find it incredibly snore-worthy to just pick of archetype from each and label them as ‘the masculine and the feminine’ in their entirety. So no, women are not necessarily masculine when they have a job that they enjoy. But even if we do conceptualise ‘the feminine’ as ‘the passive principle’ when placed in a system of dualities, to view that as being synonymous with ‘the submissive principle’ is deeply flawed and unnuanced on a metaphysical and philosophical level (see: car metaphor).

I’m aware that this is probably the longest blog post I’ve ever written, and to be honest, I’ve only just scratched the surface. I am considering writing a book on this, because it’s something I’ve explored extensively over the past couple of years, and have came to some conclusions on that I feel pretty comfortable with. Not everyone will agree with me here on everything, that’s fine, but I’d at least like to open this conversation up a little more from what I consider to be a much more nuanced perspective than ‘masculine is active and dominant’ and ‘feminine is passive and submissive’.

Rhianwen