In her recent New York Times Op-Ed piece Gail Collinsoutlined the Democratic presidential nomination challenge quite well. She laid out the dynamic tension between the staunch Feminist Hillary supporters, who line up behind Gloria Steinem, and the younger generation of women who don’t see in Hillary a role model they want to follow and are aligned with Bernie.
I see Hillary between a rock and a hard place right now. In order for her to be where she is today she had to cultivate the consciousness and capacities that I would consider more Masculine. She had to learn how to become ‘one of the boys’ in order to even play in the same ballpark. Women have been on an enormously steep learning curve the last 50 years and Hillary has stayed on that rock wall in a way that makes it possible for her to be running for president of the USA today. That is quite an accomplishment.
And it has come at a cost. My own personal experience and my leadership development work with women over the past 15 years tells me just how difficult it is for women to come out from under the weight of the Hypermasculine once they are in the drivers seat. This out of control Yang force is like a big heavy tank that just keeps rolls over the soft animal of the body and flattening the deep Feminine ground of being. It is soul-deadening, exhausting and simply not sustainable for women.
I understand the younger generation who don’t want to elect Hillary just because she is a woman. A few years ago at the Vancouver Peace Summit the Dalai Lama said, “The world will be saved by Western women.” His quote stirred up a lot of attention at the time. I believe he was saying that AWAKE women with new expressions of wisdom, love and power are needed! Gender alone will not change the world.
It will require women who are willing to do the developmental work needed to reconnect with their authentic essence and cultivate the Feminine and Masculine capacities required to show up in the world as true leaders who are a match for these complex times.
It will require women who are able to respond and not just react to the challenges of life; women who have gathered up all of themselves and are an inspiration for others to do the same. Women who are ready to upgrade their internal operating systems and start to express some unprecedented ways of living, loving, and leading. I call this next level of our development as women Mysterial.
So is that Hillary – is she a Mysterial Woman? Not yet she isn’t. But she has been willing to do the hard work required to break into the patriarchal establishment and I respect her for that. To radically change the systems and structures that are no longer serving us we will need someone who is able to navigate through those waters. And maybe once she is there she will be ready to do the developmental work required to cultivate the Feminine capacities of receiving, deep care, intuition, embodiment, flow, softness, etc. that are simply needed now to balance out the Hypermasculine.
