Tag: womens rights

By Kathleen Calder

…the fight, in and of itself, is masculine in nature and energy and is in fact still placing men above us, keeping us in a suffering loop that we can not get out of.

Women’s suffrage and the political movements that accomplished many things, including women having the right to vote, were important without a doubt. This morning though, I find myself feeling deeper into this question of the inequality between genders and what the battle for women’s equality really feels to be about. I’m feeling in the moment that even calling it a “battle” is actually very masculine. I feel this is actually at the core of all our efforting to be regarded as equal to men…that the fight, in and of itself, is masculine in nature and energy and is in fact still placing men above us, keeping us in a suffering loop that we can not get out of. There are many ways in which trying to achieve a more masculine picture of ourselves actually keeps us down and in a dis-empowered state. Instead of advocating for what makes us different and standing in the power of that, so many of us are still “fighting” what needn’t be a fight at all. Perhaps it is time now for us, as women, to invite the men more into what makes us authentically feminine. We are softer, not weaker. Most hyper-masculine men could use more softness, more vulnerability and a deeper awareness of their own emotionality that has been buried under layers and layers of deep cultural and family conditioning. These are things that we as women, by nature, seem to be more aware of on our own, and yet so many of us try to be braver, tougher, stronger, smarter, all in terms of a false picture of what it means to be “powerful”, which is actually so inauthentic to us (and probably to most men too, if they really felt into it). Real bravery, strength and smarts needn’t come from a picture of what this means from a male perspective. The longer we hold this false image as a benchmark, the longer we will be suffering.

I get and have felt inside myself that within the majority of women there is a deep soul-wounding that comes from many lives of persecution in one way or another, usually with men at the helm leading as the primary persecutors. I would love for us to feel into why we want to do the same sports, receive accolades for similar achievements, lead the same politics and organizations, or have the same role in the family as men. We have different capacities inside ourselves, making us different, not lesser than, this doesn’t look or smell the same as the men we behold on the TV and in our personal lives. Also, why do we want to bend over backwards in order to please men with how we look? I’m not saying I advocate for dressing down on a regular basis and refusing to shave your legs, but I do feel there is a more healthy, much more balanced way to even feel our own attractiveness.

I am still working with a part of me that is self-conscious and sometimes very hard on herself for how we look. There is still some self-image that I am working through with her and some of my other parts, which extends into what they feel makes a woman attractive in many areas. It has been important for me to feel the attention and validation I didn’t get from my father, a key man in my life. Without my dad giving me the love and attention I deserved and needed as a growing young woman, I had a couple years of a more masculine approach in my relationship to men and sex. This is just one example of wounding in my heart that has led to a deep lack of self-worth and decisions that have stemmed from that, often unconsciously in an effort for men to finally “see” me. All part of me wanted was for dad to see me, underneath it all. For a man or even a woman to call me out on what wasn’t really me and also on the ways in which I was fighting my own femininity. With SoulFullHeart, I have finally found men and women who call me back to my heart, and so often the mystery of what is actually real in my heart arises anew again and again, in the shape of desires, wounds, and who I really am in my essence.

I would like to leave you with what Jillian has said a number of times – what the world needs right now, in this state of our evolution, is more Divine Feminine consciousness. This means, in part, more men and women embracing what authentic femininity is. Really it feels to be an arising mystery, but there is something about stepping into this unknown territory that is mystical and feminine in and of itself. What I have felt so far in my own journey with this is that being feminine does not mean that everything is soft and fluffy, though there is definite softness and strength within it. There is also a spine and a fire, yet it is not the same as the male spine and fire. The truth is too, that we need men in their essence to contrast with ours in order to find what true femininity is – embracing a partnership and collaboration between genders for co-empowerment instead of reinstating a power struggle that has lasted for centuries.

Kathleen Calder has been embracing the SoulFullHeart Way of Life since January, 2012. Go here to read more of her writing and visit soulfullheart.com for more information about SoulFullHeart.