Tea With Nina Simons & Nina Utne

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I came to understand many of our challenges, including environmental degradation, social injustice, and corporate globalization, as expressions of the gross imbalance between what our culture has identified as "masculine" and "feminine" qualities. I saw that a greater emergence of the healthy feminine throughout our world might help achieve the balance that can restore our social and environmental systems.

NU: HOW HAS THAT WORLDVIEW TRANSLATED INTO YOUR PERSONAL PRACTICE?

NS: Once I started seeing the world as a dance between complementary qualities, I began to seek in myself traits that might be authentic to a healthy feminine, as well as those that would be authentic to a healthy masculine. While these definitions are continually evolving, there's great potential for them to heal how we see ourselves and the ways we hold ourselves accountable. We all carry twisted definitions from what we've been taught are the "masculine" and the "feminine."

NU: CAN YOU DESCRIBE THOSE STEREOTYPES, AS YOU SEE THEM?

NS: In a nutshell, we are taught that men are strong and women are weak. Men are purposeful; women are frivolous. Men are rational; women are emotional. Men are aggressive; women are passive. Men are competitive; women are collaborative. One challenge for women over the past few decades has been learning to be strong in the world without adopting a perverted and unhealthy masculine archetype.

NU: IT STRIKES ME THAT THE FEMININE HOLDS A DIFFERENT RELATIONSHIP TO POWER. HOW DO YOU SEE THAT?

NS: Part of that malformed masculine includes a false definition of power. The relationship to power that I aspire to is "power through" and "power with," not the "power over" that relies on brute strength and dominance. You have to practice humility; you have to remember that the power is not yours. A more feminine definition of power is embodied in the idea of relationships. The more we are connected to each other, to our communities, and to the natural world, the more that power is available to us.

NU: SO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT STRENGTHENING THE FEMININE TO A PLACE OF BALANCE WITH THE MASCULINE, BOTH WITHIN EACH OF US INDIVIDUALLY AND ULTIMATELY IN OUR INSTITUTIONS AND SOCIAL SYSTEMS?

NS: Yes, exactly. The challenge of how to restore the feminine really comes down to how we restore relationships. At the same time, we need to restore the healthy masculine, which for me has qualities of benevolence and generosity, a playful, flirtatious kind of trickster character, as well as desire, purposefulness, and a capacity for focus and action.

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