Animus Possession: Are you a ball busting bitch?And you're like "Whu... What?? Is this a Men's Rights Activist Jungian????" And then you read the article and see that this is one of the most amazing, insightful, and, most importantly, authentic articles about Jungian psychology that you've read (outside of von Franz and Jung himself). Absolutely amazing. Go read it right now.
But that's not what I really want to talk about, what I want to talk about is how political correctness has made it even more difficult to understand anima/us issues. Not without good reason - sexism is alive and well in modern day America and continues to sensitize us to gender issues - but reality is reality, and what is, is, regardless of whether or not it's politically inconvenient.
In no way do I think that any of this shows that women are incapable of drive or direction, or men are incapable of softness or connection. A mature person has wholeness, and that includes with inner contra sexual qualities. How much these contra sexual qualities have been integrated into our ego is a separate issue; personally, I have several animus qualities that are so deeply integrated into my ego that they are, in fact, part of my ego. But further, inner qualities are also our qualities, they belong to us as much as our outer qualities. That is, in fact, the whole point of Jungian therapy, the integration of our various unconscious parts.
The fact of the matter is, there are differences between the masculine and feminine sides of us; stereotypical, archetypal differences. There are certain characteristics and qualities associated with either feminine or masculine. These specific qualities do have some cultural differences but their roots are universal, at least for all humans. This is probably the result of the shared, universal biology in which the main evolutionary adaptation in women was relationship, and in men was competition for resources. Each culture translates these deep archetypes through their superstructural lens but the fundamental skeleton of the archetype as will be the same across cultures.
The masculine side is stereotypically concerned with competition and success. As children, boys are more physically active, less verbal, less concerned with maintaining relationship. Their first half of life concerns typically focus on status, personal success, and comparing themselves with others. Their dominant sexual hormone, testosterone, not only increases sexual drive, it also increases aggression and plays an important role in maintaining their physical abilities.
The feminine side is stereotypically focused on maintaining relationships. Female children typically have much stronger verbal skills, and it's much easier for them to express their feelings (something boys struggle with... and, based on personal experience, often don't grow out of). From the very beginning they literally look to their caregivers much more often than boys, physically looking towards them more often than boys do. Women also process more of the relationship bonding hormone oxytocin than men do.
It's fairly obvious why these different biological adaptations would confer evolutionary advantages to those humans who held them so I'm not going to go into that here. It's also fairly obvious that culture and experience also has a significant impact on individual personality. Biology doesn't determine destiny; we can make choices about how we act, and our ability to do so is only strengthened by our understanding of the various components that we're dealing with.
Archetypes also don't determine an individual human's destiny. First off, we are not only one archetype, we're a collection of complexes that move in and out of conscious awareness... and of something beyond archetypes. There's an essence to each of us that never has and never will exist ever again. The other thing is that archetypes are static and universal, while each human life is individual, unique, and ever changing.
The anima/us is an archaic symbol that lives deep within all of us and, depending on our relationship with it, will either manifest as a helpful or a destructive life partner. Part of any good relationship is seeing the other for who they truly are, not who you wish they were. It would benefit us all to cultivate a relationship with our inner other.
Links: Animus Possession: Are you a ball busting bitch?
Anima Possession: Are you a spineless wimp?
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