{"id":85,"date":"2009-09-20T13:21:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-20T17:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=85"},"modified":"2009-09-20T13:21:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-20T17:21:00","slug":"of-estrogen-and-anima","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=85","title":{"rendered":"Of Estrogen and Anima"},"content":{"rendered":"

I still remember the first time I suggested to a client that he may find it helpful to do some anima<\/em> work. A thirty-something, well-educated professional, who\u2019d already achieved what most of us might aspire to in a lifetime, this man had always measured his successes with a traditional \u2018male\u2019 yardstick (Note 1<\/em>: as a culture, we were still on the cusp of metrification; note 2<\/em>: any double entendres are completely intentional). He was \u2018appropriately\u2019 aggressive \u2013 in work, interpersonally, in leisure \u2013 allowing him to advance quickly and deliberately on all fronts. He could fly jets, he had leading-man good looks, he was a good provider, and he was respected and deferred to by colleagues. In short, his animus, his male ego was fully intact. So why the niggling dissatisfactions, the cracks appearing in his relationship(s), the relentless searching for the final piece, attaining which would no doubt make him feel complete (or so he thought). <\/p>\n

Bear in mind that these were times, in the very early 1990\u2019s, of rampant gender-role identity confusion (bit of a mouthful, that). There were women trying to be men \u2013 at least psychologically; there were men masquerading as women \u2013 athletically, entertainingly; there were men trying to be men \u2013 but ever so carefully so as not to \u2018piss off Mother Nature\u2019; there were strong women with traditional values; and there were men wondering just when it became politically incorrect to be male. And so on. . . and on. The \u2018roar\u2019 of the strident feminists, the equivocation of the fence sitting \u2018soft male\u2019 apologists (as Robert Bly was derisively fond of labeling as he advocated for men to reclaim their \u2018wild man\u2019), the entrenchment of any number of seemingly incompatible, \u2018gender postures\u2019 made one, at once, long for the simpler days of Father Knows Best and celebrate the energy of such diversity. So when the consummate, well-socialized macho man is advised to explore his feminine side, one can only imagine the confusion contained in the \u201cmy what?\u201d response \u2013 not to mention, the resistance. <\/p>\n

In the past fifteen to twenty years, we\u2019ve made some progress; although I strongly suspect, were I chatting with this same man today, I\u2019d be greeted with the same quizzical, initially amused look \u2013 conveying every bit of the unvoiced \u201cyou\u2019re kidding, right?\u201d Dinosaurs like Steinam at one pole and the religious, fundamental right at the other, beating its paternalistic drum relentlessly, still survive \u2013 but the uncritical acceptance of these anachronistic extremes has thankfully diminished. A sort of regression to the gender-posture mean, as happens with all statistical and social phenomena, has once again asserted its truth. <\/p>\n

Jung\u2019s concepts of animus and anima, descriptive of the male and female energy contained in each of us, have once again found a more sustainable, more balanced, less suspected expression in the culture. My now yellowed with age comments to my former client were little other than a suggestion that he explore a healthier balance in his life. The (literally) high-flying, aggressive, competitive \u2018yang\u2019 energy that had appeared to serve him so well in his first few adult decades, was sufficiently lopsided that it had begun to flag as a formula for living. A little more \u2018yin\u2019 was needed. At the time, no easy prescription \u2013 when polarities abounded; balance, equanimity eschewed.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to the impetus for this piece. In our parish, this is \u2018ACW Sunday\u2019 — for the uninitiated, the Anglican Church Women\u2019s day to report in and hopefully recruit a few younger folk to their ranks. Some discussion had grown around the choice of readings for our BCP service \u2013 together with the \u2018preferred\u2019 language to be used. The \u2018Virtuous Woman\u2019 (of Proverbs 31) was to be described as the \u2018strong and capable\u2019 woman. And the homilist was to be the assistant priest, with no small reputation \/ track record for championing the role of women in the church. My wife and I had joked a bit around how she might \u2018explain\u2019 my absence from service today \u2013 with my rather flip summary comment: \u201cToo much estrogen!\u201d I\u2019d anticipated (and I really must resist the temptation to pre-judge these things) a, how can I put this, asymmetrical morning (read lopsided, polarized rant \u2013 once again at the cost of equanimity); and chose to take a pass, rather than boost my blood pressure.<\/p>\n

I suppose this is, in some ways, an extension of last week\u2019s rant (of my own) \u2013 a rebuke of exclusivity. My client and our priest are, in the words of a friend, the \u2018sandpaper\u2019 that rubs away our surface rust and allows us to consider things from a slightly more \u2018exposed\u2019 (and hopefully, available) perspective. My sense is that, as long as we travel back and forth along the same \u2018highway\u2019, with feminism at one end and chauvinism at the other, making our points, expressing our position at the expense of the \u2018other camp\u2019<\/em>, we will never see any other landscape. A detour, just a little \u2018north\u2019 of this all too well-travelled path allows us to both distance from this adversarial, partisan and pointless debate, bent on cultivating the already converted (whichever camp that may be) and alienating the other; and to regain a little balance in our perspective. Welcome to Equanimity, population TBA.<\/p>\n

BTW, what was the homily about? Community building \u2013 but that\u2019s another story.<\/p>\n

David Howard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I still remember the first time I suggested to a client that he may find it helpful to do some anima work. A thirty-something, well-educated professional, who\u2019d already achieved what most of us might aspire to in a lifetime, this man had always measured his successes with a traditional \u2018male\u2019 yardstick (Note 1: as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}