by Lee Warren
Even though I live out in the woods, run a farm, and work in women-honoring and cooperative settings, I still actively seek out news and entertainment with a wider focus. I’ll listen to NPR or watch movies on Netflix. I love being informed and staying connected to something larger and putting my life into the context of what other beings (human and non-human) are experiencing.
This exposure both humbles me to the richness of what I have and also leaves me feeling perplexed much of the time. I find myself wondering why world and business leaders can’t cooperate better. Or why movie characters don’t know the basics of communication and relationship skills.
Our American culture tends to value logical, factual, and detail-oriented functions but devalues the more intuitive, big-picture, or creative aspects of life. Left-brain functioning has ruled the modern world (education, economics, politics, etc.) with the accompanying focus on the win-lose, past and future, and accomplishment paradigms that come with it. Right-brain thinking has been sorely underutilized and for most of us, we need to work at shutting off the left-brain “doer” in order to get into an artistic space where only the present moment exists. Here we can access deep wisdom and creative juice.
Being successful in the world has been predominated by the left-brain and by men. And yet we’re noticing how now this is beginning to change. More and more leaders from all disciplines are emerging. And they are women. Apparently women and their natural talents are changing the world. While we’ve know this instinctively, the research is now bearing this to be true.
According to Helen Fisher in her book, The First Sex, “Tomorrow belongs to women.” This is from Amazon's book review of her book:
“Women, she says, are contextual thinkers to a far greater degree than men; this “web thinking,” as Fisher dubs it, is an asset in a global marketplace. Women are far more talented than men at achieving win-win outcomes in negotiations. On an organizational level, women are less interested in rank and more interested in relationships and networking, an essential attribute in a world without borders. In the arena of education, women have a natural talent for language and self-expression; as healers, they enjoy an emotional empathy with their charges that can and will redefine doctor-patient relationships. And, she predicts, in the next century women will reinvent love by asserting feminine sexuality and creating peer marriages, true partnerships.”
Win-win outcomes? Interested in relationships? Natural talent for self-expression? Emotional empathy? Reinventing LOVE?
Glad someone’s paying attention. Looks like our unique talents are finally needed and wanted and rewarded.
Here’s to the return of the feminine!
