Here we are, moving through the holiest season of the year; you’d think we’d be full of joy; instead:
How did this cultural miasm, which refuses to acknowledge the biological identity of the body one is born into, and instead focuses on the (socially constructed) idea that “gender is a social construct,” originate? What grants were given to what universities to set the ball rolling? And when? Wikipedia notes that the first Women’s Studies courses were taught in 1970, with full-fledged Women’s Studies Department and degrees coming soon after. Note: now called “Women and Gender Studies.” If so, then it unrolled as part and parcel of “feminism” when it advanced from “female consciousness-raising” which I was a part of, and which was given a huge boost in 1972 by by Gloria Steinem’s glossy MS Magazine. Steinem herself, who used to work for the CIA, also authored an early gender-bending article called “If Men Could Menstruate.” Meanwhile, LGB has been adding endless new letters (and “identities,” and pronouns), morphing into LGBTQ+.
It’s Not in Your Head: The History and Science of Gender Fluidity
To me, most alarming was how this entire movement, to dissolve the innate polarity between the sexes, to base one’s “identity” on the body (and then surgically and hormonically alter it at will), has demonstrated the poverty of the foundational ideology of scientific materialism, and how it has precluded a richer, Jungian understanding of the psychic and spiritual complexity of the human being.
Whereas Jung recognized the (hidden) anima in every man and the (hidden) animus in every women, youngsters today are not introduced to such complex thinking.
Anima/Animus
Jung believed that nested inside the shadow are the qualities of our opposite gender. The anima is the archetype that expresses the fact that men have a minority of feminine qualities; and the animus expresses the masculine qualities within women. In every man there is a woman, and in every woman a man; or rather, there is the image of the ideal man/woman, which is, as a rule, formed in part by the experience of our mother/father, and by the influence of culture and heritage. One might argue that the ideas of feminine and masculine are based on arbitrary stereotypes. But Jung presented the concepts of the anima and animus as the ancient archetypes of Eros and Logos. Eros (the female) is associated with receptivity, creativity, relationships, and wholeness.. Logos (the male) is identified with power, thought, and action. (In Ancient Greek Eros means ‘love’, or ‘life energy’; whereas Logos is the term for a principle of order and knowledge.)
The anima then is a personification of all feminine tendencies, positive or negative, in a man’s psyche. A positive expression of the anima might include sensitivity and empathy, capacity for loving relationships, a feeling for nature. But if the anima is rejected — that is, if a man represses those characteristics which might be considered classically feminine — the anima becomes deformed: feelings and emotions are replaced by moodiness, sentimentality, hysteria; fidelity becomes possessiveness; aesthetics become sensuality; tenderness becomes effeminacy; imagination becomes mere fantasizing. The animus, on the other hand, is a personification of masculine tendencies in a woman’s psyche, such as strength of conviction, assertiveness, courage, strength, vitality, and a desire for achievement. But if the woman disregards her masculine edge then she will become possessed by the animus: assertiveness will become aggression and ruthlessness; and analytical thought will become argumentativeness.
As with the shadow, the archetypes of the anima/animus have their own autonomy, and are independent from our conscious mind. Thus the anima/animus can be projected in the world so that they appear to be some qualities of a particular man/woman. In the presence of the anima, or at least a good imitation of anima, a man feels a peculiar familiarity with her, as if he has known this woman for all time; in some cases, the energy between the two is intoxicating, to the degree that one might say he has fallen in ‘love at first sight’. In truth, he has fallen in love with a deception, with the image that he has projected onto another woman. It is only when the mirage of the projection disperses will he realise himself as a fool. Once the projection is withdrawn the anima can be recognised as a force within oneself. After having integrated the anima, men seemingly reconnect with a divine power in the inner world — which might express itself as a creative ability, or a sensitivity for the natural world— which must have always been within them; but which had to be shown to them by the presence of the feminine, by the guiding hand of a woman.
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I remember the years in my 40s when I was determined to evoke the animus, and to integrate male/female both into the Self via the mystical conjunctio, I wanted to become “whole.” So that I could fill the “hole” in my being caused by projecting the animus onto men. And conversely: I was so much a tomboy when young that I had devlaued my own femininity. Both poles had to be both acknowledged and integrated, for me to become whole.
The process took years.
But now? Though it’s still admitted that biological sex is innate, in that one is born into either a male or a female body, gender itself, remember, “is a social construct.” So say the woke ones.
It wasn’t until 1980, that the DSM first introduced (invented) the disorder called “gender dysphoria.” Now, over forty years later, “gender dysphoria” has spawned a massive boon to Big Pharma (hormone blockers, antidepressants) plus increases in psychological, psychiatric, and surgical professions and hospital systems — not to mention entirely new ways of indoctrinating (confusing) children, and attempting to split them from their own parents.
All in all a disgusting period in human history.
Meanwhile, the rate of detransition among trans youth continues to rise.
Hopefully, the human race (what’s left of it, post-covid) will look back on this period in history as a nightmare from which they were grateful to awaken.
Ann: No photo displayed at the top.