Not My Kind of Polarity

90s nostalgia, women's rock, and its map of feminine polarity

In | HER | it | ance is sourced through the womb and the Mother. I stand by this and believe that the Feminine’s role in the creation of the world we want to live and be apart of needs women in the fullness of themselves. Your polarity is your power.

I have concerns around the messaging of the polarity trend and where it is headed for women. The main problem that I see right now is with the implicit directive that women are designed to serve the masculine and that the well-being of themselves and their families depend on it.

If you have read my writing, you know that I openly disagree with men being the “leaders” of the family. If anyone is to hold a leadership, or guiding role in the family, I believe that should be the feminine. You can read my thoughts about that in the essay, “ (re) Entering the Queendom.” I want to be discerning with the implications of these thoughts I have seen floating around the internet. I want to drift back to the 90s when the era of women’s rock was taking its hold on young women and girls like myself.

I remember sitting in the backseat on sunny days while Meredith Brooks’s iconic song, Bitch, from her album, “Blurring the Edges,” was blasting through the speakers of our family’s radio. Thank goodness for the 90s. I was roughly 10 years old when I remember the goosebumps that would travel down my arms when I heard this song. I knew then, that there was something very raw and powerful in the feminine.

Photo by Roger Ce on Unsplash

Let’s revisit the lyrics that earned her number 79 in VH1s best song of the 90s. Remember VH1?! I loved their best of series. Meredith was supposedly inspired by Carl Jung when she wrote the lyrics of this song. Jung, infamous for his work surrounding the psyche, brought to light the idea of our shadow self. Pun was not intended but it works here. We know that the more we hold the shadow/darkness of ourselves, the more of who we are we can bring into the light.

Meredith Brooks, Bitch, 1997.

I hate the world today.
You're so good to me,
I know but I can't change.
Tried to tell you,
But you look at me like maybe
I'm an angel underneath,
Innocent and sweet

Yesterday I cried.
You must have been relieved
To see the softer side,
I can understand how you'd be so confused,
I don't envy you.
I'm a little bit of everything
all rolled into one

[Chorus:]
I'm a bitch,
I'm a lover,
I'm a child,
I'm a mother,
I'm a sinner,
I'm a saint,
and I do not feel ashamed.
I'm your hell,
I'm your dream,
I'm nothing in between.
You know you wouldn't want it any other way.

So take me as I am,
This may mean you'll have to be a stronger man.
Rest assured that when I start to make you nervous,
And I'm going to extremes:
Tomorrow I will change,
And today won't mean a thing

[Repeat Chorus]

Just when you think you've got me figured out,
The season's already changin'.
I think it's cool you do what you do
And don't try to save me.

[Repeat Chorus]

I'm a bitch,
I'm a tease,
I'm a goddess on my knees.
When you hurt,
When you suffer,
I'm your angel undercover.
I've been numb,
I'm revived,
Can't say I'm not alive,
You know I wouldn't want it any other way.

When did we start being ashamed in all of who we are?

And what are we telling women within the context that the polarity of who they are (their light and their dark,) isn’t what makes them loveable, powerful, and fulfilling to the masculine?

Photo by Akira Eshi on Unsplash

Feminine and Masculine Polarity Coach Teachings

I certainly don’t want to say that I have the answer here. In reality, I’m not convinced that the masculine and feminine are in full service to one another. I think we are all in service to God/the Divine, and that we must all operate from our inner service to love above all. Each of us, male and female, must find our inner anchors of safety in this world and that true safety doesn’t come through another human, it comes from our connection to Mother Earth and God. Our safety should be an inherent part of our humanity, and yet the most harm to women has come from the hands of men.

I do not believe that women will ever take their rightful place in the world, equals alongside the masculine, if we are placed in a position of victim hood that wants us to be fully open and soft so that we can feel safe, even if that is within the context of a man being in right relationship with his masculine.

I think that is why I have such strong feelings against polarity teaching.

Here are some quotes from teachers in this work, and my dilemma to follow.

“Women are meant to be soft, open, sweet. This is how a woman opens a man into his masculine.”

“A woman protects a man’s spirit by being his place of peace and nourishment.”

“She wants a man that will lovingly put her in her place if she is being disrespectful. Not a man that tiptoes around her.”

“It’s a man’s responsibility to preserve and protect his woman’s feminity.”

What femininity are we talking about here? It sounds like it only includes the light, pretty, good girl aspects of the feminine.

The good girl archetype that has been incredibly damaging to women. The archetype we have actively been trying to break out of that tells us we must be small, not be too much, and serve to be palatable. The good girl that leads us to ignore the warning bells and submit to people pleasing.

It doesn’t speak to the femininity that can facilitate life and death within, or the femininity that can birth new worlds. It doesn’t mention the femininity that is an internal direct link to God/Source through the womb. Please show me how the masculine is the only resource of safety a woman needs?

I would like to know how this doesn’t place women in the role of prey to this world, even if you supposedly are living your mature masculine?

This side of femininity in the polarity teaching demonstrates women to be nurturers, sure, but is that all we really are? Is your sole design to open so a man can be masculine and lead you? Where exactly is he leading you? What is his internal guidance?

I don’t see the reverence for the true gifts of womanhood here. I see the feminine as very one-dimensional and insultingly incapable. It is positioning us as prey harboring a necessity to be ‘saved’ by the strength of the masculine.

The female physiology is a wide and encompassing cycle that is not limited to opening. She holds life, facilitates death, composts, renews so that she can open once again. What serves this cycle, or my femininity in the polarity world, is my consciousness within it and my willingness to retreat into the darkness, so I can draw up more light.

Do we really want to cast aside the darker parts of our nature, our wounding, the dark mother within? Or do we want a stronger man who can hold all parts of us, letting us be who we are in every moment? A closer look into the teachings, and I can see how a man creating a safe space to open is part of a healthy relationship dynamic. Of course women won’t reveal themselves to a man that is not in his own integrity with life. It is however, not a prerequisite for women to initiate into the mature mother, mirror of the Earth, and holy grail of life. This happens through her womb and birth into a mother, independent of a man’s provided protection.

I like to think of all the other mammal mothers on the Earth and how so many of them birth freely and unsupported, and go on to raise their young without the safety of a male to support her in her role. We are animals in human bodies after all. We are not called mama bears for no reason.

The Real Polarity

My version of polarity is the reality that women are so many things, sometimes all at once.

The current teachings tell us that the grief we are feeling is because we are ‘not in the feminine.’ What I feel is exactly what Meredith talks about in her song. Being the bitch, and the lover, the child and the mother, the sinner, and the saint. That is polarity. We are all of these things. And that is where our greatest grief lies.

There is so much grief in the polarity of the Feminine. It is painful when I am a mother and a creative surge overtakes me and I don’t have the space to act on it. It is equally painful when I am creatively pouring into my business and I hear the laughter of my children, or miss out on the beach trip, or a bedtime tuck-in.

I sense shame-hidden agendas and guilt-inducing quips in the traditional life movement and the polarity worlds towards women who want want to live in the fullness of their womanhood.

You are not wrong to want it all. You are both, and, and. And there will inevitably be grief, it is an inescapable part of a woman’s life, and its also where our greatest love and work flows from.

Rather than tell you that you are a soft, pretty, nurturer, I will say you are this, and you are a fierce, creative, highly skilled world builder.

This reminds me of a quote shared recently by Anabel Vizcarra that I felt in my bones;

“The world has enough women who know how to do their hair and build pretty things. Now we need women who know how to become potent and do holy things.”

Photo by Inja Pavlić on Unsplash

The Cyclic Truth

The lyrics of Brook’s song speak so much to the cyclic nature of women. I read in Tami Kent’s profound work, “The Wild Feminine,” that women are revealing their truths in the ‘bitchy’ aspect of the luteal phase. She didn’t exactly phrase it that way, it’s my summation. And it has certainly stuck with me for the last decade. The profound truths of my life are always revealed before my bleed. It is a truth that cuts with the precision of a blade. It is a no non-sense, precise reflection of what needs to die so that the rebuild can happen in a more aligned way. It is clarity and truth. The good girl is absent, her time to play as the maiden is over. The mature feminine doesn’t hold back being held inside the world of others, she is the world builder herself.

Your feminine cycle, at its physiological roots, is taking you through a life, death, composting, renewal, and blooming cycle, every single month.

You are not designed to be a blooming, open, pretty flower every one of those days. The female body is intended to deconstruct what isn’t working and reconstruct/birth a new world every 28 days or so.

The female body is a blueprint of the creation codes and creation is a holy structured mother. You are a reflection of her nature.

So yes, there are periods of your cycle when you will want to flow and build pretty things. At other times, you will feel the need to speak truth, respectfully, but it will be truth that shakes the foundations and reveals because that is in you, too.

Brook’s received push back to these lyrics, at times labeling her an “angry,” “unstable,” young woman. But it clearly resonated with many, and even my young self. I remember how unsavory my moods were for everyone during my youth. Chastising me to be nice, a good girl.

I see the subliminal good girl messaging resurfacing as our world spirals into persistent dogma and polarized sides, pigeon holing the feminine rather than letting her access her full range.

Even at 10 years old I remember—

I never wanted to be a good girl.

I’ve always wanted to do potent, holy things.

I would love to hear your thoughts on polarity and what it means to you?