In the past week, I’ve seen at least five interviews where the interviewees discussed the acceptance of women being opinionated and men being soft. While it’s absolutely okay for women to be assertive and men to be gentle, the underlying message often seems to be a societal push for change. It feels like there’s a collective effort to encourage women to be more assertive and men to be softer, kinder, and more compassionate.
This shift, though well-intentioned, often overlooks our core nature—our intrinsic feelings, desires, behavioural traits, and characteristics. By nature, most women are more compassionate, caring, and nurturing. These are commendable traits and something women should be very proud of. Similarly, most men are naturally more assertive, opinionated, and goal-oriented and possess more of these masculine traits. It’s also worth noting that women also possess masculine traits like assertiveness, drive, and ambition while men similarly exhibit feminine characteristics of being caring and nurturing. However, in most cases, men tend to display higher levels of assertiveness than women in general, and women tend to exhibit greater degrees of compassion and nurturing traits.
While there will always be exceptions, the societal push seems to highlight these exceptions as an attempt to drive change. On the outside, it may seem like we are trying to create a more liberal society where people are free to do what they want. However, we may unknowingly be doing the opposite. Anything that indirectly forces majority to be what they are not or act against their core nature cannot truly be liberating.
It also impacts attraction dynamics, as men are generally more attracted to women with feminine traits, and women to men with masculine traits. When society promotes the opposite, we start believing that we want those things as well. Women may go out seeking more compassionate, caring men, and men may go out seeking opinionated, career-oriented women. However, when men meet women who may be more assertive than they themselves are or women meet men who may be softer than they themselves are, the attraction isn’t genuinely felt. Most women are innately often looking for leaders and someone they can look up to, while most men seek someone who can make them feel at home and provide care and compassion. This mismatch between what we think we want and what we actually want based on our biological makeup can create inner turmoil and unrest, causing us to lose touch with what we are truly seeking.
It’s also worth noting that women may possess nurturing traits for a reason. They are the ones who bring new life into the world and are often the primary caregivers. A child needs the mother’s nurturing, especially in the initial stages. If society pushes women to lose these traits and men to adopt them, it can create an imbalance. A father, while important, cannot replace the mother’s role in the early stages of a child’s life.
I believe that the main issue is that we are overly identified with our genders and societal expectations tied to them and aren’t tapping into our inner desires and true talents. People often conform to societal expectations rather than understand and embrace their true selves. In the past, women were expected to be the best wives. Now, they feel pressured to be career-oriented and assertive, sometimes without knowing if that’s truly what they want. Modern women might feel the need to work to avoid being labelled regressive. This leads to juggling work and home responsibilities, leading to burnout and stress. This pressure stems from a fear of being seen as less capable or valued if they choose to be homemakers, despite how it affects their well-being.
Similarly, men might struggle with the pressure to be more soft and compassionate than what feels natural to them. If being assertive and taking charge gives them true esteem, suppressing these traits due to fear of being labelled as toxic is problematic. This doesn’t mean that we should encourage actual toxic controlling behavior or abuse. However, natural leadership and assertiveness are admirable traits. If these traits naturally exist in men, forcing them to suppress them can be harmful to their self-esteem.
I think a good way to be our best authentic self is to visualize a world free of judgment or societal norms. Imagine a world where we are completely allowed to be who we want to be and no one cares about what we choose to do. Let’s forget our genders for once and truly just tap into our core nature, find our deep inner desires, recognize the talents we’ve been bestowed with, and see what we are meant to manifest in the world. That’s when we’ll know what we are here to do.
My understanding is that if we let everyone freely decide and choose what they want to do and be, majority of men would naturally organize themselves into more practical, ambitious roles, and women would arrange themselves into creative and nurturing roles. So, the societal changes we are trying to make could be doing the opposite. We assume that homemakers feel inadequate or unfulfilled, but it’s possible they feel that way only because we make them feel that way, not because they would feel so otherwise.
In conclusion, while societal changes towards gender equality are important, it’s crucial to acknowledge and respect individual core natures and true desires, rather than conforming to societal pressures and expectations.
