Feminine Power: What Is It and Is It Female?

I’ve read several articles on feminine power recently and I’ve seen groups formed online with feminine power as the title. I even participate in one on Facebook. The Dalai Lama has been quoted as saying, “the western woman will save the world”.

So, is feminine power limited to women? I don’t think so. I see it as a part of being human and it is needed to balance masculine power, which is also a part of being human. There is no cut and dry explanation for how these two powers express, though there are general characteristics that define them.

Feminine power is the creative, connected, nurturing, spiritual, love, intuitive, receptive and gentle side of Spirit that expresses within humanity. It is typically associated with the female gender though as you can see from this list, men are capable of expressing these qualities also.

They just tend to be more strongly expressed in women naturally and men are strongly conditioned to repress them. Feminine is not weak, less intelligent, passive or without self-expression. If it is taken out of balance with masculine it can show up this way and even then it does not have to be limited to female.

I feel that much of what is labeled as “feminine” in our society is distorted just as in the movies of old, women were given weak pathetic roles where all they did was scream and become victimized, or they were “dumb blondes”. This is ego stereotyping at it’s worse, and accounts for why when I was a younger ambitious female, I tended to want to avoid acting “feminine” as I wanted to appear strong, smart and unemotional.

This was a false and unhealthy mindset and even for men, repression of their feminine qualities is not empowering and accounts for the “imbalance of power” within their own reality. It is the reason for driven behavior, greed and the like.

A healthy masculine quality is important to take action and get things done (a function of logic), become self-sufficient, speak up for self-expression, to have boundaries and to bring linear order to inspired (feminine) ideas. Masculine qualities are available to women as well. In fact, the hemispheres of the brain are assigned for general qualities related to masculine and feminine.

The qualities of the left hemisphere relate to masculine and the right hemisphere relate to the feminine. Of course, both men and women have both hemispheres. The issue that needs to be dealt with is stereotyping. Though time, roles were assigned to people as the ego/masculine mental processes began to dwell in a paradigm of fear and separation.

There are some logical historical explanation for how this began, and the fact that men are generally bigger and stronger helped to reinforce male control in human community. The more one represses feminine qualities, the more likelihood for domineering masculine behavior. Provision and self-sufficiency becomes greed, individualism becomes isolation and mistrust and protection becomes aggressive and paranoid.

What we need is an awakening of the true, healthy feminine. Not the stereotyping of “acting like a girl” – what the heck does this mean? It implies lack of competency, which is only a prejudice. I don’t think we should assign role playing to either gender. As both genders reconnect to the power of the heart, the feminine, balance can be integrated into the energies of the masculine qualities as described above and then one can come from their own authentic expression within the contexts of their lives.

When love, gentleness, intuitiveness and spirituality is blended with separate individuality, assertiveness, intellect and physicality, there is an expression that is inclusive and expansive and does not come from a place of fear. Collaboration for the good of all begins when the masculine and feminine powers within us all can collaborate and blend together.

After all, love, feelings are powerful assets and motivates/inspires us to take action in the world. Our sense of isolation and self-protection is due to the extremes of masculine without the integration of the heart….a heartless mind. For peace of mind, radiant health and charismatic personal power the ebb and flow of “doing” (masculine, acting upon/external) and “being” (feminine, receptive/internal) are required.

It’s not either/or; you are most powerful when you can call on both as needed and as you prefer – it is not about meeting an external, assigned standard. What do you think about the rise of the feminine power, or better said, our reawakening to the feminine qualities inherent within humanity? What are your thoughts?