Diminishing Femininity: The Problem Hitting Employment and Human Well-Being.

 

“What ridiculous? What are you talking about… what does femininity have to do with employment? Are you saying there are fewer women out there for employment, or the society still isn’t giving women an opportunity? Why do you women try to link everything with femininity or masculinity?” His facial expressions clearly showed a mix of puzzled look with contours of sarcasm.

 “Chill, dear… take a breath… I certainly don’t mean what you are saying. By diminishing femininity I mean diminishing feminine energy from the life of every individual—be it a male or a female—and then consequently from the home, from the village, from the Governments and from the Corporate world, from our personal pursuits as well.” She said and paused to look at him.

 While his sarcasm faded, the puzzle was still there.

“Interesting… could you elaborate?” he said.

 “Listen.” She smiled and came closer, looked deep in his eyes and said,

“Your life, my life, the Universe and everything we do was always about balance… balance of Masculine and Feminine power The Yang and the Yin  energies… if you have heard about the chinese philosophy.. This has been nature’s way since millions of years. The dawn of humanity was never supposed to be any exception. As long as the balance was maintained, we were happy, satisfied and in tune with the universe.”  She paused and went to the kitchen. As she returned after a while she sensed he still looked puzzled, so she continued:

“For humans, Masculinity or Yang  brings ambition and goals, while Femininity or Yin provides process for it and makes it meaningful as well.

Yang energy dreams of big businesses…Yin energy facilitates their acquisition and makes their existence meaningful and sustainable.

Yang energy dreams of Power. Yin energy facilitates its acquisition and converts it into a welfare mechanism for the people.

Yang  builds a house… Yin converts the house into a home. Understood?”

She playfully pulled his nose with her fingers and handed over the cup of coffee to him while sitting next to him.

 “How? I still don’t get all your statements. The home thing I understand a bit, but that’s because usually it’s the lady of the house who brings homeliness to the house… but I guess you are not talking that,” he said while sipping his favorite cup of coffee. A fresh wave of energy ran through his body as he sipped and it showed on his face.

 “Wow… wonderfully tasty as usual,” he said as he blissfully smelled the coffee.

“Give me some examples to understand what you are saying.”

 She casually took her sip and said,

“Look, smarty…It’s not about males and females obviously. Most businesses in this world are built by men, and those businesses which have flourished and stood the test of time for decades or centuries are built by great leaders. And who is a Great Leader? A blend of Shiva and Shakti. While ambition, dreams, goals, establishments, wealth are representing Masculine energy, the ability to execute—the everyday small actions, the compassion, the resilience, the empathy—are Feminine energies. Vision may be  Masculine, but Mission needs Femininity. Purpose may be Masculine, but it’s  feminine that imparts meaning to the purpose, a sense of satisfaction and achievement.

Passion is masculine -compassion is feminine... while speed may be masculine, stability is feminine. And speed without stability is disastrous, isn’t it? None is complete without the other, and none can achieve something on its own truly.

 Pick out any great person in this world—be it Politics, Military or Business—who has made any positive impact on this world, and study his life. You will see that he or she is a perfect blend of both energies: Masculine and Feminine. Yang and Yin go together .. A great leader is a Father as well as a Mother for his people, for his team, for his Nation, isn’t he?”

 “Yes, you are making sense to me now,” he said thoughtfully. “Could you tell me how do you link this to employment problem?”

 “Well, my dear hubby, it’s simple. What applies to great leaders also applies to you and me.

When we are talking about employment, we know that employment is not a problem but Employability is. And what does Employability consist of?”

 “What?” he asked.

 “Employability is a kind of wisdom that represents both knowledge and the skill to apply the knowledge. While Knowledge can be said as yang energy, Skill is necessarily a  yin energy. Knowledge is about the larger picture, Skill is about doing it here and now… applying that knowledge.

Students are graduating from reputed universities with great degrees that boast of impressive scores. You ask them anything and they will impress you with their parrot-like reproduction of knowledge. But ask them to execute the same thing practically, more than 70% struggle to do so—be it a Grade A college or a local ungraded college.

 As I said earlier, Dreams, Ambitions are Masculine. But practicality has always been a domain of the Feminine. The new generations are full of dreams and ambitions but are clueless about how to achieve them.

 When we lived in jungles, the man hunted down the prey, but it used to be the woman who converted that hunt into palatable food. Even now you bring the money, and it’s me who converts that money into various energies which feed you physically and mentally,” she said teasingly, and he couldn’t disagree.

 “To put it simply, women are more practical than men. Femininity is practical. Or to put it another way, Practicality is feminine—it is the ability to put masculine know-how to work. And this is applicable to both men as well as women.

 Students are flaunting great resumes full of awards and achievements, but when it comes to application , compassion, empathy, teamwork, compatibility, patience—what do we see? Students are missing this feminine aspect. And ironically, even girls are not an exception here.

Mere Knowledge is of no use. If I know how to cook but I can’t cook, then what’s the use? Did they teach you driving in Automobile Engineering? If yes, did you practice enough in college? maybe not. You didn’t think that it was important then. But then that’s the point—you may know how an engine works, but if you are not able to run it, then your utility is limited.

Employment doesn’t pay you just for what you know. It pays for what you can do with what you know, and how well you can do it day by day.

 And by skills I don’t mean just tech skills. How well you align with your immediate teams, your larger office, your company and your organization are also part of your skills. The answer to all this lies in  balance of the two energies  and we may call it Employability. And it's  where we all, across the last few generations, are lacking. The diminish started a few decades ago and now it’s accelerating into a downward spiral.

When it comes to Skills, it’s about physicality—your hands, fingers  your legs , and then maybe other organs as well, including your sensory organs and the Prefrontal lobe of  your brain as well.. 

People know programming but can’t write a simple code, people know mechanical engineering but can’t hold a Vernier caliper or can’t weld a simple joint, people know civil engineering but can’t lay a brick. They have become more Masculine… they have ignored Lakshmi—Femininity. Just like you used to ignore me earlier,” she said laughingly, and he frowned.

She got up while continued speaking… walked upto her favourite window in the hall…  looking out  she said, “Skills were looked down upon, without realizing that skills are like Lakshmi.

If you want Kuber (the Wealth) to arrive  at your place, you can’t ignore Lakshmi (the Money), because he doesn’t come unless she is settled at a place.

We have been ignoring all the feminine attributes of our personality under the garb of education and something grossly misleading like a white-collar job. We have been looking down on all kinds of skills. And that’s how we have been consciously removing femininity from our lives for decades. Even most women these days have become more masculine and have ignorantly thrown out their own feminine attributes.

 And hence, it’s no wonder that we all are unhappy, clueless, restless and even directionless.”

 “Hmm… you gave an interesting perspective. I never looked at this problem this way. So what do you think is the solution now?” he asked.

 “Meri sharan me aa jao bachche,” she said playfully, winking as she turned towards him..

Tumhari Sharan me to mai pichale 4  saal se hoon… ab Charan me ataa hoon Maate ….. par Margdarshan karo ….He said with equal grace and brought her back to the sofa making her sit as he casually sat down near her feet and kept his head in her lap…

as they both sat in silence for a while…..  far away the sun was lighting up the venue for the sky to meet the earth and  music of Navratri pandal nearby was getting audible... 

( to be continued….. )


Avinash Deshmukh