Masculine and feminine energy

Both men and women each contain elements of masculine and feminine energy.  Both are absolutely essential to being a well rounded person.  The energies are different, and they serve different functions.

Masculine energy is the energy of aggression, drive, directness, action, order, strength, logic, rigidity, competition, individuality.

Feminine energy is the energy of nurturing, submission, love, patience, creativity, the abstract, receiving, calmness, the collective.

It's important to define these qualities as energies and *not* as male and female.  A woman can be driven and rigid.  A man can be nurturing and submissive.  To quote Chaz Bono, "gender is between your ears, not between your legs."  However, to deny there is a very high correlation between one's birth gender and gender expression denies reality.

Men are more likely to express masculine energy more often and women are more likely to express feminine energy more often.

But beyond the expression of certain energies/behavior/personality, there is something else to it.  If a man can express feminine energy to the extent of his choosing, and a woman can express masculine energy to the extent of her choosing . . . why is gender important at all?  Gender is a part of their identity.  I would argue that for the vast majority of people - gender is the second most fundamental characteristic of a person after being human.  Gender colors a person's view of the world and interaction with the world more than race or nationality.  In addition to how a person interacts with his/her world, there are a series of hormones that drive certain behavior.

A set of natural behaviors come with one's masculine or feminine core most of the time.  By masculine or feminine core, I might define this (as a researcher did) as the difference between a systematizing (male) brain or an empathizing (female) brain.  This article which summarized this study that studied 419 college students and found these results between systematizing (male) and empathizing (female) brains:

	Systematizing brain (male)	Empathizing brain (female)
Mostly systematizing	53%	17%
Mostly empathizing	17%	44%
Balanced	24%	35%
Extreme systematizing	6%
Extreme empathizing		4%

The study strongly correlates the differences in brain types to pre-natal testosterone.  The observations from this article emphasizes that differences in interest in people vs things are present in children younger than 12 months, indicating that the behavior is more nature than nurture. 

In the end, my point is this - men and women come wired with a certain set of energies that feel right to them.  To make these men and women happy, they should be reared with an understanding of how to maximize the use of their energies and interests.  Fighting against one's core and its energies can work, but it makes people unhappy and confused.