The Feminine World

Sitting next to my co-worker A., I’ve really come to understand what Marie Louise von Franz talks about in her books when she describes a world in which the feminine principle predominates. In one book (I can’t remember where – I will look for it) she contrasts a cold, brutal, excessively male world with one in which the female is overly emphasized: the women are fat, happy, and lazy; the men are impoverished; and a kind of general intellectual stupidity reigns. I always felt this was a little excessive, maybe a bit of the self-hatred typical in who women managed to achieve intellectual success at that time.

So now I’m sitting next to A., and I’ve been thinking about her and my other co-worker B., who sits on the other side of me. A. and B. are polar opposites when it comes to work; where B. takes enormous pride (too much, really) in her work, and goes above and beyond in most of the things she does (particularly if others are watching), A. does the minimum possible… and generally sloppily and half-assed at that. At the same time, she bristles furiously if anyone makes any sort of comment about her work.

A. is a friendly middle aged woman; she loves to talk, especially about other people (B. in particular offends her, because, quite honestly, B. kisses up to superiors and often tries to make everyone else look bad in order to make herself look good.) She especially spends a lot of time on the phone with her college aged daughter, as the two of them complain about everyone in the daughter’s life - selfish boyfriends, rude coaches, mean friends – they are literally on the phone every single day. She takes everything personally… EVERYTHING. Everything is personal, whether for good or bad. Any criticism is seen as a personal attack; “real friends don’t do things like that to each other!” and “I did all of that for you and THIS is how you treat me?????” And every belittlement has to be hashed over and over again with everyone she knows, in the most emotional way possible.

A. also has serious problems with willpower; she absolutely cannot say no to herself. In the year we’ve been sitting together, she’s basically been “on a diet” the entire time… but she can’t manage to go two days without breaking her diet. And she’s not dieting for vanity, just to look better, but for health reasons. She’s pretty much incapable of doing anything that challenges her in any way. She doesn’t really seem to be bothered by this either, except in the most lukewarm way.

Everything is deeply personal with A.; the guy who always cuts her off in the cafeteria at breakfast is “scrawny and probably doesn’t have a girlfriend,” and she voted for Trump basically because she liked him better than Hillary Clinton. She is a person who almost completely operates on personal feeling; she’s pretty much completely lacking in any sort of principles or morals, in the sense of “things one does because they’re correct.”

What’s important to A. isn’t whether she’s adhering to some abstract notion of right and wrong, good and evil; what’s important are people and her relationship with them. A. may not give a fig about doing an excellent job at work, but she will always make sure that you feel welcomed and included. She’s proud of the fact that she’s raised her kids to not do anything that would make someone feel left out. She’s also vocal in her disapproval of young people who are cliquish and unkind, and of her disgust in their parents, who failed to “raise their kids right.” (At the same time, she will indulge in that very same behavior but in a hidden way, but that has more to do with her neuroticism and general unconsciousness than anything else.)

Sitting with A. has been enlightening; she’s one of the most purely “female” females I’ve met. Many women (and men) are in touch with our contrasexual side, to a greater or lesser degree. For example, while B. has a motherly aspect when she’s dealing with superiors and inferiors (or, more accurately, motherly and concerned with people she deems “valuable and worthy,” and like a regal, kindly queen with those she deems her inferiors) she’s competitive with those she considers to be at her same level. She has definite notions of right and wrong, and operates largely from a combination of pride and efficiency. A., on the other hand, operates almost completely from her feminine side; she values personal relationship above all else, and everything else, including her work, is second to that.

So... It appears that, once again, MLvF knew exactly what she was talking about! A one sided world, or personality, which is completely lacking in the masculine side is happy but pretty much lazy and lacking in any kind of rigor; moral, intellectual, or otherwise.


To sum it up, the feminine world would be characterized by:

Positively
Relationship
Connection
Feeling
Caring
Pleasure

Negatively
Laziness
Carelessness
Lack of self-control
Intellectual poverty
Over emotional


A quick contrast of the masculine world is (think something like a boy’s school…or Reddit):

Positively
High achieving
Principled
Disciplined
Impersonal

Negatively
Brutal
Cruel
Unfeeling
Impersonal (can be good or bad)