Exploring the 4 Polarities of the Masculine & Feminine Archetypes

The concept of intersectionality in recent years has challenged people's notions of how the Masculine and Feminine archetypes appear in humans. Due to its overemphasis on the Masculine and oppression and suppression of the Feminine, patriarchal culture in Western civilization over the past 3000 years has rigidly applied these archetypes based solely on an individual's sex, valuing only masculine qualities in biological males and feminine qualities in biological females. Thus, males and females have been discouraged from and even punished for displaying qualities of the "opposite" archetype. Such unequal emphasis has resulted in a lack of wholeness and balance (which, by the way, would have also been true if the Feminine had been valued over the Masculine).

However, there is a more nuanced interplay between the polarity formed by the respective principles and values of Masculine and the Feminine. (Polarities are an interaction of two opposite or contradictory tendencies or aspects, such as active/passive, mind/body, light/dark, heaven/earth, image/abstract symbol, individual/community.)

We used to think of positive and negative aspects of only two masculine and feminine archetypes until Gareth Hill proposed additional possibilities for the Masculine and Feminine in his 1992 book, Masculine and Feminine: The Play of Opposites in the Pysche.

Hill proposed that the two polarities actually create four aspects of the masculine and feminine, with each of the aspects containing positive and negative qualities. Those aspects are the Static Feminine, the Dynamic Feminine, the Static Masculine, and the Dynamic Masculine. We experience these aspects as we grow and mature as individually.

The Static Feminine - Infancy

The Static Feminine is represented by the circle and is the aspect of the Feminine that is nurturing, supportive, and constant. During our development as individuals, we experience this aspect of the Feminine mostly during infancy when we are completely dependent on the nurturing parent who supplies everything that keeps us alive. As infants we don't recognize that we are separate beings from the mother.

The Dynamic Masculine - Toddler Through Adolescence

Moving from infancy, we display the Dynamic Masculine personally during the toddler stage through adolescence into early adulthood. This aspect of the Masculine expresses the tendency toward becoming separate and independent. It's about showing initiative and taking action directed toward a goal. We have the drive to conquer and master knowledge, skills, and competencies to become more independent. We can also exhibit extremes in our behavior, often willful, determined to achieve goals.

The Static Masculine - Early Adulthood Through Middle Age

Personally, we experience the Static Masculine especially during early adulthood into middle age as we build a family structure and/or a career. This aspect of the Masculine is about stability, rules, order, systems, standards, and hierarchy.

The Dynamic Feminine - Throughout Life

The Dynamic Feminine is apparent in the playfulness of children of any age and when children and adults alike engage in the creative process. This aspect of the Feminine is about undirected movement toward the new, the nonrational, and the playful. It is the flow of experience: vital, spontaneous, open to the unexpected, resilient, and receptive.

The Aspects of the Masculine and Feminine on a Cultural Level Throughout History

The Static Feminine of the Goddess Cultures

In the same order that they appear in individual development, these aspects of the Masculine and the Feminine can be used to describe societies in Western cultures.

The Static Feminine appears to have been the dominant value system in the the Goddess cultures of Old Europe, Anatolia, and the Near East, from around 10,000 to 5000 years ago. In these cultures, the circle and the cyclic nature of things was important as these societies focused on the recurrent rhythms of the day, the seasons, the cycles of the planets and stars, and of birth, death, and renewal.

Archeological evidence suggests these societies were peaceful and valued the creation of art through images with no writing. They were matrilineal and egalitarian with an individual's ultimate value determined by their kinship group. In other words, the collective was more important than individual expression.

They also seem to have viewed themselves children of the Great Goddess who provided them with everything they needed to survive and thrive. In other words, the Goddess was constant and supportive but a power outside the human being who prayed for her to work her magic.

Yet, for all of the peaceful and predictability going on, this paradigm of living was constraining. Not only were humans dependent on the Goddess, but they likely saw themselves as powerless, living in supplication to the Goddess and within the predictable cycles of nature.

The Dynamic Masculine of the Sky God Cultures

What a shock it must have been for the Goddess cultures to come into contact with the nomadic, herders who worshipped a masculine Sky God. About 5000 years ago, these tribes began their rise to prominence by integrating with or seizing power over the earlier Goddess cultures over a couple thousand years. Exemplifying the Dynamic Masculine, these warring cultures, built cities, and developed writing using abstract symbols.

Unlike the previous cultures, these societies were patrilineal and patriarchal, focusing on masculine traits and values and dominating and devaluing women. They seized power and rejected the emphasis on the connection to nature of the Goddess cultures. They differentiated the roles of men and women, restricting women to domestic duties, while men dominated the public sphere and the battlefields.

Static Masculine – Ancient Greece through 20th Century

After the disruption caused by the nomadic herding tribes, the Static Masculine settles in. This was the period of civilizations like Ancient Greece, whose most powerful god, Zeus, was a stern parent who could forge humanity into some stability. These societies still used force to bring law and order and used and reason to understand their world. They organized individuals into systems of order, prizing hierarchy and creating bureaucracy. Rooted in rational knowledge, they focused on rational thinking and scientific reasoning, science, government, and the law.

The Static Masculine has been with us now for about 3000 years, encompassing the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and is still with us today even though it just might be slipping out of favor.

Dynamic Feminine - NOW?

I've noticed the return and rise of the feminine in recent years although it did start in the 1960s. This time perhaps, rather than the Static, it's the Dynamic Feminine. That means it could be a combination the straight lines of the Masculine with the curves of the Feminine – a spiral.

Maybe we will return to rely more on our internal authority instead of being so subject to societal norms and be trust tapping into our inner wisdom rather than merely our intellect of received ideas. It could be we consciously use both sides of the Masculine/Feminine polarity together to value both individuality and community, both the passive and active, and both logic and imagination.

We could be in transition away from either/or thinking towards valuing all 4 archetypes rather than relying on only one.