Masculine & Feminine Energy: How to Find Balance

What is meant by feminine and masculine energy? How does it affect me? Does it have to do with gender? Those are all questions we want to provide answers to in this article.

It’s a man’s world. Boys will be boys. A Macho Man. Man up. Boys don’t cry. And last but not least, stop acting like a girl. We all know those sayings and from a very young age, we also know the implications behind them. Men have to be strong, men don’t show emotions, men have to win at all costs. But why is that so? From a biological point, all of those things barely have substance. Men tend to build muscle more easily than women, but then look at female body builders. Men have more testosterone in their bodies, but does that affect their ability to cry. No. So what are these widely known phrases and biases based on. It’s the concept of masculine and feminine energy.

How can we define Masculine and Feminine Energy?

To start off, Masculine and Feminine energy actually doesn’t have anything to do with gender. We as a modern society just proscribe these attributes more to one or the other gender because of learned constructs. Firstly, we want to see what actually masculine and feminine means in the context of energy.

Every single person has a mix of masculine and feminine characteristics, as you probably found out for yourself, when reading this list. Some may lean more to the feminine side, some more to the masculine side, regardless their gender.

A great example of two characters that don’t align their gender to energy are two characters from the TV show “How I Met Your Mother”: Marshall and Robin.

Marshall Erickson is a straight male character in the show, that leans towards the more feminine energy. He reacts very emotional when it comes to the separation from his girlfriend in season two. He is highly ethical, and quits his well paid job at a law firm in order of being an environmental lawyer. On top of that, he is very superstitious and believes in all kinds of myths. On the other hand, you have another member of the friend group, Robin Scherbatsky. She is a News host, driven and focused on her career. In a later season, she even moves to Japan. In the show, she often acts emotionally closed up. When two other of her friends in the show have a baby, she rather feels uncomfortable around it, than developing motherly feelings herself. This goes to show that the energy really doesn’t have to correlate with the attributed gender.

Though this is a great example of this divergence, we are more often than not expecting one or the other kind of energy from a person. This, again, doesn’t have to do with gender, but more with the role, we play at certain times. A parent should be in his/her feminine energy. When it comes to work, the masculine energy is the standard that we mostly expect. In a friendship or community, we often find both energies. In sports, it is more masculine again. When it comes to relationships, this is a bit more tricky, and we will talk about that later on.

How does Masculine and Feminine Energy form our society?

This concept of energy and how we value certain traits is even applicable to the grand scheme of a society. In the field of intercultural studies, you will find scales that show how feminine or masculine a culture is.

The Masculinity […] represents a preference in society for achievement, heroism, assertiveness, and material rewards for success. Society at large is more competitive. It’s opposite, Femininity, stands for a preference for cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life. Society at large is more consensus-oriented.

Hofstede Insights

Many of you probably live in a mostly masculine countries. Large parts of Central Europe or the United States fall into the category of masculine countries.

The shining examples often used for predominantly feminine cultures are Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. In those Scandinavian countries, people also tend to be happier in general. While this is seen more as a correlation than a causality, this fact should not be completely disregarded. In feminine cultures, gender roles are less strict, both parents act as caretakers. There is less of a power distance between the sexes. All in all, it seems like the feminine cultures are not in a state of female dominance, but rather a true form of equality.

This is especially interesting for the concept of feminine and masculine energy. Since there are far fewer norms around the gender roles, people are free to express their true behavior. While men with female energy are often times regarded as weak and women with masculine energy as too bossy in masculine countries, this would probably be less of a problem in more feminine cultures.

How does Masculine and Feminine Energy affect our relationships?

Today’s News feeds, and Social Media are full of buzzwords like toxic masculinity or the divine feminine. The depiction of these phrasings is very lopsided at times and oftentimes makes masculine traits seem bad, while the feminine attributes are enhanced and praised. These two wordings are really the extremes of the masculine and the feminine energy. Like in so many situations, the extreme is not always the best option.

Both concepts leave very little room for balance. They focus on the polarity rather than what we should really strive for: harmony. Like Yin and Yang, either energy can exist without the other.

While this might seem as a difficult task to master, we as human beings are actually excellent at detecting the energy balance of the people we get to know. What we can observe in our personal connections is that we search for people who are balancing out our own behaviors. Opposites attract. Well, at least to a certain degree.

Let’s create a small scenario: Person A and Person B had a fight in the morning, before they both went to work. Now they are both back at home and want to discuss the matter.

This situation might be familiar to some of you, either you feel like Person A or Person B, depending on which energy is more dominant in yourself. Now, is this difference a problem. The answer might be disappointing to you. It totally depends on the circumstances. If this is occurring all the time and you both just can’t get each other. One is always hurt, while the other one doesn’t even comprehend why, it will probably be hard to find a common ground in the long haul.

How do we find balance as a person?

Now this example goes to show that different energies not always create a perfect balance, but how can we strive for it, when we are in a partnership or even within ourselves. We have collected our tips for you, depending on which energy is more dominant within you. In a partnership, you should strive for understanding rather than changing your energy. When it comes to personal development (regardless if you’re single or taken) you can try to access other energies and see what that holds for you.

Balance in a partnership

Balance within yourself

While this topic might seem holistic and spiritual at first, we saw that it even has a place in sociology. As a great concept, it spans from whole cultures to each individual. We hope we could answer your questions and enlighten you with our tips at the end.

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