Feminism, Polarity & The Myth We Accidentally Broke

There’s a question I’ve been sitting with for a while now — not as a feminist, not as a woman, but as a human being trying to understand our collective psychology:

What happens when feminism forgets the feminine?
And masculinity forgets the masculine?

Because lately, the conversations I overhear — in cafés, on group chats, over wine nights — don’t sound like empowerment anymore. They sound like a war cry.

Not against patriarchy.
Against men.

A frustration so sharp it’s starting to look like hatred.

And somewhere in all of this, I can hear Carl Jung whispering:

“What you resist, persists.
What you fight externally is usually what you have not reconciled internally.”

We didn’t break the patriarchy.
We internalised it.
Then we flipped it.
And now some women are wielding that same masculine shadow with pride — domination, dismissal, superiority masked as empowerment.

But that’s not feminism.
That’s just patriarchy in drag.

The Forgotten Polarity

Jung spoke of animus (the masculine within women) and anima (the feminine within men).
A healthy psyche holds both — but in balance.

When the feminine rejects its own softness, intuition, empathy, and receptivity, and instead elevates aggression, dominance, and emotional rigidity, it becomes the very thing it was trying to dismantle:
a distorted masculine archetype.

And when the masculine rejects its own strength, direction, courage, and containment in fear of being “toxic,” it collapses into passivity, shame, and confusion — a distorted feminine archetype.

We are not meeting each other.
We are trading shadows.

And so the polarity collapses.

Where there was once magnetism, we now have resistance.
Where there was once attraction, we now have fear.
Where there was once mutual respect, we now have competition.

This is not evolution.
This is fragmentation.

Feminism Was Never Meant to Erase Differences

I believe in feminism — with my whole chest.
But I believe in a version that honours polarity, not erases it.

Strength is not exclusively masculine.
Softness is not exclusively feminine.
But the archetypal energies exist for a reason.

Men and women were never meant to be identical.
They were meant to be complementary — yin and yang, form and flow, structure and intuition.

When we stop honouring these polarities, we don’t become equal.
We become disconnected.

Disconnected from ourselves
and from each other.

The System Is the Problem — Not Most Men

Here’s the truth:

Most men are not sitting in dark rooms plotting how to keep us down.
Most men are not deciding promotions, pay gaps, or reproductive laws.

The system — built by generations of unconscious masculine energy — is what we’re fighting.

Not the average man sitting next to us at dinner.
Not the friend who is trying.
Not the man who is learning to be better.

But we treat them the same anyway.

And ironically, that is how toxic masculinity operates:
“Group them all together. Punish them all.”

The shadow is the same.
Only the costume changed.

Men Are Not the Enemy. Women Are Not the Victims.

There are things men are naturally wired for that women can’t touch.
There are things women are naturally wired for that men can’t reach.

This is not inequality.
This is polarity.

A tree grows tall because the roots grow deep — not because the branches declare war on them.

And yet here we are, hacking at each other’s roots.

Here’s What I Believe:

A healed woman does not hate men.
A healed man does not fear strong women.
A healed society knows how to hold both energies without forcing them into battle.

Feminism was never about conquering men.
It was about conscious partnership.

Masculine and feminine — in both men and women — meeting in the middle, not overpowering each other.

When we weaponise feminism, we don’t free anyone.
We just recreate oppression with different branding.

The real revolution is internal:
Women reclaiming their feminine without shame.
Men reclaiming their masculine without fear.
All of us integrating the parts of ourselves we’ve disowned.

This is how patriarchy actually breaks.
Not through war —
but through wholeness.

When the World Changes but the Story Stays the Same

We like to believe that humanity evolves. That time softens our sharp edges, that society becomes more just, that we learn from history. But standing between the stories of Lucrece in ancient Rome, Sita in the Ramayana, and the experiences of women today, I can’t help but feel a strange heaviness: so much time has passed, and yet the patterns remain painfully familiar.

The Ancient Stories We Can’t Shake Off

In Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece, a woman’s trauma becomes the spark that topples a monarchy and establishes the Roman Republic. In the Ramayana, Sita’s abduction launches a war that redefines notions of duty and dharma. Different cultures, different eras, different moral frameworks—but the same underlying script:

a woman’s pain becomes a political event
a woman’s body becomes a symbol
a woman’s voice becomes secondary to the men who act on her behalf

Both women were bound by ideas of purity and honor. Both were held responsible for violence inflicted upon them. Both became catalysts for the ambitions, decisions, or redemption arcs of men.

Behind every cultural veneer lies a stark truth: women have always paid the price for the moral failings of powerful men.

The Modern Echoes of Old Wounds

You would think thousands of years of progress—education, law, social movements, global awareness would transform these dynamics. But today, the forms have simply changed.

Victims still face disbelief.
Their character is still dissected.
Legal processes still retraumatize instead of heal.
Silence is still considered safer than speaking.
A woman’s body still becomes a battleground for politics and public opinion.

It’s Lucrece all over again.
It’s Sita, rewritten with modern vocabulary.
The same story, staged on a different platform.

Why Does This Keep Happening?

Because these patterns aren’t random—they’re structural.

They come from centuries of:

  1. patriarchal power systems
  2. cultures obsessed with purity
  3. societies that protect perpetrators
  4. communities that shame survivors
  5. institutions built by, and for, men

You cannot dismantle in a few generations what was cemented over millennia.

But There Is Change—Slow, Fragile, Real

And yet, it’s not all despair. The story may be old, but people are rewriting it every day.

Unlike Lucrece, women today don’t have to die to be believed. Unlike Sita, they aren’t required to prove their purity to justify survival. The silence that once suffocated entire generations is now broken—loudly, publicly, unapologetically.

Movements like #MeToo, reforms in consent laws, trauma-informed practices, survivor-led advocacy. They are all signs of a culture shifting, even if slowly. Violence may not disappear entirely. Human nature makes that unlikely. But the way we respond to it can change and that is where hope lives.

Will It Ever Stop?

Not completely.
But will the story remain the same forever? No.

Because today:

  1. women have language for their trauma
  2. societies are more accountable
  3. patriarchy is named, not accepted
  4. education challenges old scripts
  5. survivors are connecting, supporting, demanding
  6. younger generations refuse to inherit silence

Change is not dramatic; it’s cumulative. And we are living in the middle of that accumulation.

The Story Is Changing, Because We Are

Ultimately, the world doesn’t move forward because time passes.
It moves forward because people refuse to accept old stories as destiny.

The fact that we can draw a line from Lucrece to Sita to women today and see the pattern clearly means we are already breaking it.

Awareness is disruption.
Naming is resistance.
Questioning is transformation.

And every generation that refuses the script writes a new one.