Samar comes home from a long day at work and he finds a fuming wife, Piya, sitting across the table, ready to lash. Piya is irritable, complaining to him about how she has to manage work, home, kids and in-laws, while Samar is "chilling" at the office and has to be served even when he comes home. A confused Samar, unable to understand his wife and her frustration, lashes back, saying "I also help out at home as much as I can. Why don't you appreciate that?" An angry Piya gives it back to him, saying "You only have to work in the office and help out just a little bit at home. I have to do EVERYTHING!"
Sounds like a common scenario in most Indian households. Truth is, both men and women today, are expected to do everything. Both are expected to work, help out at home, take care of the kids and maintain peace and harmony in the house. And yet, when one doesn't perform their role perfectly, both get overwhelmed and it usually is a cause of discord between a couple. There is a higher percentage of divorce rates for this reason that is brought out in couples therapy than most other reasons. So what is really happening in this scenario? I always like to check the Feminine and Masculine balance in such couples.
The Feminine Masculine Energy Conflict
Our evolution and biology has defined areas of strength in each sex. The feminine is very powerful, great at multitasking, focused, dedicated, morally high, and emotionally rich. At the same time, evolution has made the feminine more nurturing, kind, caring, compassionate, and empathetic. The masculine on the other hand have been gifted with risk-taking, ambition, need for dominance and control, singular focus, and strong survival mechanisms in financial and physical aspects. Along with these abilities, they have developed traits of aggression, limited empathy, objectivity, excessive rationality and low frustration tolerance to emotional stress.
There are women who have high masculine energy and men who have high feminine energy. There is some connection between your sex - male or female - and masculinity or femininity. Women innately have a higher feminine energy. This is a result of millions of years of evolution. As they develop their personalities, the masculine also gets developed. What Carl Jung talks about in his theory of anima and animus, is very similar to the concept of yin and yang. The balance between the two energies of masculine and feminine brings about a harmony in a personality. Therefore each individual ultimately needs to reach this balance between the two energies. What we refer to in Hindu mythology as Shiv-Shakti, is the same concept of feminine and masculine balance. The Nataraja, who is a male with feminine energy of grace, harmony, and sensitivity. The Kali Maa who is a female with the masculine energy of aggression, destruction, and justice. There are many more such depictions of the beautiful balance between these energies in mythology and religious scriptures.
The fanatic-feminist movement has brought a repression of the feminine energy
The feminist movement has been pivotal in empowering women to get education, work, and opportunities and free themselves from the shackles of patriarchy and oppression. Right from pre-independence, feminism has been in vogue. Queens have ruled for the longest time and have been great rulers. The biggest example of Queen Victoria, under whose rule the British colonialism even took place, and the British did take over almost the entire world. There have been queens in India who have made history and have changed the face of the nation. In many cultures, matriarchy took over patriarchy, and in fact has always been there, for example in many parts of South India and even South Asia. Women, like Savitribai Phule have been pioneers in education and have spread light across the country.
The feminist movement was required and is still required in parts of the world where women are oppressed and aren't given opportunities merely on the basis of their sex. What the feminist movement focused was on EQUITY and not EQUALITY. Equality exists in a utopian world where men and women are given equal opportunities and are also expected to provide equal results and work in equally harsh environment. Equity means opportunities are given to all but conditions of work and education are altered based on your strengths and limitations. For example, a blind student is provided a reader and writer during an exam, however is given the opportunity to appear for the exam. If equality truly existed, then even the blind student would not have been offered with this help, and would be expected to write the exams exactly the way other students do. Equality is a mere illusion and it can never truly exist in a realistic world.
However, the past 2 decades, feminism has earned a bad name. Women all around the globe are competing with men, and rightfully so. However, what has come out of this latest movement is a blatant hatred towards men and the feminine roles that women undertake. Women do not like the term "housewife" for example. Now it is the glorified term "homemaker" that women have labelled themselves with. Women themselves have demeaned other women who are more in touch with their femininity. What this has done is create an imbalance in the harmony between the feminine and masculine within the individual. Completely repressing the feminine and developing the masculine has become a primary focus. The world right now is bombarded with excessive masculine energy and has led to a scarcity in feminine energy.
What has come out of a strong pseudo-feminist movement fighting for equality and not equity, in the past few decades, has worked counterproductive in most households. Women have taken over the masculine world with their existing and highly developed feminine qualities. Now, this would work wonders if the masculine world out there was not so cutthroat. It requires a different set of specialised skills to survive in a ruthless, material and opportunistic world. Some women have developed these skills intentionally within themselves and have been successful in their endeavours. While others have demeaned brutally the existing role of the feminine, stating blatantly that "Why should only women do the nurturing and caring?" and adopted a more masculine viewpoint of the world even at home.
What happens when these skills and new traits are brought inside the home by both partners?
A marriage works when both partners know how to "lead" and "follow" alternately. Two leaders in the same field cannot build a strong and robust organization. You cannot have two CEOs in the same company, or two CTOs in the same organization. There is a reason why roles are divided and responsibilities are distributed for everyone in a leadership position within an organization. A home is no different. In families, where women have to undertake the primary function of the breadwinner, leads to severe frustration. Women will always complain that they have to financially run the house, if the husband is not financially better than them. If you are asking for equal opportunities, then responsibilities also tend to be equal. Men in such households, then take up a more feminine role, very naturally, without completely discarding their own masculinity and ego that comes with it. An understanding man may even run the home while earning whatever income he can bring in.
However, in my experience with several cases, most men end up feeling emasculated. This leads to a sense of resentment towards the wife and a self-hatred that comes with feeling inadequate and not connecting with the more masculine parts of himself. Women, lose respect for their partners in these situations. This happens because women also subconsciously have not completely accepted the role of being a primary provider. Isn't that a recipe for disaster?
What happens to these couples after having a child?
I have met hundreds of couples facing these issues, and most couples try to overcome these by increasing their income multifold, or figuring out how to adjust to this dynamic. It is harder said than done. To accept that our roles are reversed and that we are now acting against our natural instincts is a near impossible task. All hell breaks loose when there are children in the picture. Maximum couples who have a masculinity/femininity imbalance get divorced after the birth of their first child. What is assumed to bring the family together, breaks these couples apart.
Women become less tolerant of their husband's lack of financial success, they start expecting more help at home because, let's face it "you better help me out with the kids if you're not bringing in the money to uphold our lifestyle". Men are not gifted with the natural instincts to care for an infant. They do not lactate, or have the necessary hormones for emotional binding with an infant that is a design of our brain-oxytocin release which is important for bonding and connection, or the emotional quotient to deal with a temper tantrum patiently. So what happens to the men? They become even more bitter. They are already not as successful as their wife in their career, they are inadequate as a parent and homemaker. Basically, the man ends up feeling like a "loser". Frustrated wives, who can be vicious, use this weakness against their partners. Very few wives handle the situation with patience, thinking "It's ok he's not providing enough, and it's ok he is not capable of handling the baby". Even if they think this way, they end up musing "Let me take care of EVERYTHING". So, back to Samar and Piya. This is how she felt she had to do EVERYTHING and Samar basically had to do NOTHING.
What can this couple do to resolve their conflict?
What these struggling couples need to understand is that you can play both roles in the outside world, achieve success, have ambition, and achieve greatness. However, at home, your primary roles have to be in sync with your natural instincts. If as a woman, you are hyper-masculine, then you need to be accepting of the fact that your husband is hyper-feminine or needs to be. The expectation of a masculine role from him would only lead to disaster. If as a woman, you are hyper-feminine, then you need to be supportive of your partner to channel his masculinity in the right direction and create a peaceful environment for him to focus on achieving success, so that he can fulfil his masculine role. As a man, if you are feminine, you need to accept the dominance of your partner and learn the skills required for a feminine role. If you are masculine, then it is your duty to channelise it and gain ambition and achieve the financial freedom, you too are craving.
Now, is it possible for these roles to change over time? It has taken millions of years of evolution for us to reach this point. We cannot expect change to happen just within a few decades. Forcing this change to take place will not only break marriages but also dissolve society. We will only have masculine energy in this entire universe and a severe lack of feminine energy that is necessary to keep everything in balance. When one partner has a role shift, the other one automatically does. So if you, as a woman are tired of playing both masculine and feminine roles, you can choose your role as per your natural instinct. And be prepared for a role shift to happen for your partner as well. If you choose femininity, you will automatically see a shift in your partner's masculinity. He will automatically become more focused, driven, aggressive in his work. The same holds true for men. All it takes is an awareness of the existence of this imbalance in your marriage, readiness to get out of your comfort zone, change your world-view in this overly fanatically feministic world and masculine world, and embracing the beauty of this balance of masculine-feminine.
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