Receptivity is Quintessentially Feminine

My in-laws have a pretty impressive fruit tree orchard containing 80+ different types of trees scattered around their property. Lemons, apples, grapefruit, grapes, pears, oranges... You name it, they likely have some variant of it. They always have far more fruit than they can possibly eat, so I figured I'd ask for a basket full of their lemons and try some dehydrating techniques I've read about. We'll see how that goes!

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I've been wrestling with how best to proceed on my quest to recover the majesty of the feminine. It struck me that I first need to understand what qualities are considered Feminine, so I thought maybe I'd explore that idea. It's funny how life brings us what we need when we need it.

Alison Armstrong has a new book out called Making Sense of Men. While watching the Between the Lines interview she did, she said something which really hit home for me. Here is the quote from that episode:

"Receptivity is a feminine quality. Unfortunately, between work and the Women's Movement and our culture and that women are highly adaptive... Women, without even thinking about it will become whatever is valued. What's valued in our culture is productivity, so women have become masculinized. So even though receptivity is quintessentially feminine, most women have lost touch with their femininity. So they have become lousy at receiving: at receiving pleasure, receiving gifts, receiving compliments, receiving care, receiving attention. We've just become lousy at it. We're being men, we're being the providers, which doesn't leave men any room to be men."

As she spoke, I could literally feel what she was talking about, feel it as an energetic tightness in my chest. My dad once stated that I had a PMS shield which all men would bounce off of - and for the first time, I understood viscerally what he was talking about. All the examples of attempted giving that I could come up with were accompanied by rebuffs of the attempted gift.

"You look good in that shirt." -- "No, it makes me look fat."

"I can provide for you." -- "I don't need you to provide for me. I can contribute as well as you can."

I've long had the ideal of working from home. I think one of the key reasons I could never really decide on a career is that I thought (really deep down!) that the one I really wanted was closed to me. "You can be anything you want to be, except a woman." I can be female, no problem -- but not a Woman, and most DEFINITELY not a woman who works to take care of her man. Taking care of CHILDREN, that's acceptable, laudable, admirable. A female can do that. But the concept of taking care of her man??!? Ludicrous. Those women, those ... housewives (say it with a degree of disgust for full effect), are stupid, lazy, unambitious, beaten down females who do not value themselves. They are users of the worst order. They are lesser.

At least that was the rhetoric I picked from popular media growing up in the 70s and 80s, reiterated and expanded in the 90s and on. Well, I'm certainly intelligent, far from lazy, very ambitious and woe to the fool who tries to beat me down! Therefore, I had to have a Career ... which I didn't really want. Damn it.

The problem is that I never wanted A (single) career. I'm a multitasker, and my attention goes all over the place. Trying to pick just one thing that would hold my attention for a lifetime... Impossible! It's one reason why I've had so many varied 'careers', from software analyst to wedding consultant. I don't want to do just one thing, and what I really want to do isn't done in an office! Here is a smattering of the things I've wanted to do: train dogs and horses; spin/dye/work with fiber; make patterns and sew clothing; write romance novels; and so much more! All of these can easily be Careers, but I don't want to dedicate 8 hours per day to any single one of them. It's very difficult for me to maintain that level of focus, especially over multiple years. If my Career were housewife, then making sure my man could do his job of providing to the best of our collective ability, this path then opens the door to me being able to do all the things I want to do, in the doses that I want to do them. If they are fresh, I have more energy and enthusiasm to work. I get stuff done! But there's so much else to do that I can happily putter around and do it all, without the oppressive weight of needing to define any single one thing as a Career. The Career is housewife, and to do it well requires a whole lot of varied and diverse skills and knowledges.

Hearing Alison say what she said about receptivity was, for me, a major shift point. I could suddenly see myself and my denied/repressed motivations more clearly. She was dead right - I was receptively challenged. What I deep down wanted and what I thought I should want were in conflict, and always have been.

It was ... liberating to hear her say it. Validating. I recalled my earliest post in which I stated that by leaving the work force I was voluntarily crippling myself. Now, I have to chuckle at myself. This was an expression of the conflict - I wanted to accept the gift offered, but I believed that I could not. I believed that accepting it made me lesser, but that didn't feel right. I was tearing myself apart with this! But hearing this show segment, and by allowing the impact of what she said to really sink in, by allowing myself to unfurl so that I could honestly and without internal conflict receive the gift being offered completely changed the way that I think. Accepting a gift doesn't make me lesser. It makes me greater, and it opens the way for both of us to be greater still. A line in my last post suddenly resonated more strongly:

It is only by working together that they have the possibility of reaching their potential as individuals.

As I was processing all of this and trying to figure out how to approach it in a blog, a phrase popped into my mind:

Behind every Great Man, is a Great Woman.

I am striving to be Great, in my own way. Significant to me. I am very ambitious, but not in terms of a typical career. This trait of mine means I would never settle for a man who did not himself possess the potential for Greatness. My hubby has it, in spades, as well as the ambition to reach for it. It's why I admire him so, and I see it as my job to accept him, to inspire him, to support him so that he can manifest what I see in him. He has the focus and the dedication to that single task which I will never have, and don't want. By working together, each leveraging our inborn strengths for the benefit of our family, we can be far more successful together than we can be separately.

He's already commented that he's seen a change in my outlook. Considering that we've known each other for almost a decade, that sudden change surprised him, and he's a leery but he very much likes it. I will continue working on my ability to receive with genuine sincerity.

One thing I will state is that "receptive" is not synonymous with "passive". I do not think for a second that Femininity is meekly passive. There is too much power there to be passive, too much to do. Neither is being receptive about being greedy or being a leech. If you are associating qualities similar to these when you think about what it means to be receptive, those are incredibly damaging.

The next time some man compliments you, let those words sink in. Feel them penetrate and spread throughout your body. They carry with them a soft warmth. In response, smile and say simply, sincerely, "Thank you." When that little negative voice in your head tries to find fault, put imaginary duct tape over her mouth. Do not ask for anything else. Just accept what has been offered and go on about your day. It's really amazing how uplifting that accepting even a small compliment or act of kindness can make me feel.

- Lioness (in training)