A Critique of Feminism

On Women’s Collective Shadow

Abstract: Feminists eschew the demands of individuation. According to female psychological authors, there is a tendency among women to remain like little girls: they harbour a secret wish to be dependent on a strong man. Other than career and material aspirations, women should turn to inner growth, in order to acquire a true psychological independence. A forlorn “moon consciousness” ought to be reconquered, which signifies the ability to exist in a symbolical realm, as women can be said to be responsible for this side of existence.

(Svensk abstrakt)

Introduction

Are women truly liberated today? In medieval times a person was regarded as fettered and enslaved in so far as he/she had an obsession with worldly matters. The individual had then become subject to serfdom under carnal powers. Today, curiously, it’s the other way round. A woman is seen as emancipated if she is worldly-minded, obsessed with carnality, and does what she likes. For example, a woman is seen as “free” if she lives out her sexuality to the full. But in medieval times she would be viewed as bound and fettered by carnality. So we have changed our ideals. Some modern people, however, have experienced what serfdom under worldly addiction means. Obsession with worldly career can also be addictive and develop into a form of abuse.

Although this is medieval pre-psychological thought, expressed in religious terms, it remains the correct view of things. This is what psychology has taught us, too. A liberated person is someone who has achieved independence of psychological complexes and suffers no obsessions. It means transcending the world, yet partaking in it, but this time not obsessively.

If feminists had learnt the lesson of psychology, they would know what constitutes liberation, namely the integration of unconscious complexes. Just because women in history have led a tragic existence, tied to domestic duties, it doesn’t mean that a surrender to unconscious life represents the solution.

From this point of view, feminism is anti-psychological as it has turned this insight upside-down. As a result, the female collective has become chockingly unconscious, decidedly worse off than in the Victorian era. In that time, one can see from their letters (European women wrote much letters) that their eros-consciousness was much more profound than today. Feminism has led women out of the frying-pan into the fire.

Sun-consciousness & moon-consciousness

The main obstacle in feminist thinking is its obsession with material concerns, although the problem is really at another level. The predicament in the Western world is really that there is too much emphasis on the psychological “sun principle”, whereas the “moon spirit” has been forgotten. The question of women’s material equality is secondary to this. The topical issue of women priests exemplifies this. The true quandary is the psychological aspect of the missing feminine, i.e. how the feminine spirit manifests in current social life and thought. Whether or not women should be allowed in the priest’s pulpit is not a burning question.

Literalism is a typical sun quality. When the sun shines, everything becomes clearly defined. Yet, mature thinking also makes use of the lunar powers. In the moonshine things tend to meld together, and the landscape isn’t clearly defined anymore. A tree stump may become a troll. It is a landscape of nature spirits. It is a great deficiency of our time that people have lost connection to moonlight consciousness. It does not signify an essentially different consciousness, but merely a toned down conscious function that allows unconscious forms to grow, along lines of historical mysticism. This is arguably what feminism should focus on; the psychological aspects of femininity, rather than obsessing with female material success and numerical equality.

I argue that the subject matter becomes too enmeshed in materiality by keeping an overly strong focus on worldly issues. As a consequence, the archetype of the feminine becomes projected on the material world. The archetype plunges down into materiality, becomes vulgarized and trivialized, which is what psychologist Marie-Louise von Franz has warned against. The feminine goddess is forgotten, actually. The feminists have become obsessed with the material world and women’s career issues, and have forgotten about the archetype of the feminine. In fact, as modern people only learn to think in terms of the visible and the material, it gives rise to a generation of imbeciles.

The effects of a one-sided sun-consciousness can be seen in the following example. Recent law change in the state of Utah practically turns women into incubators and rates their lives second to that of their unborn child. Natural miscarriages could be subject to criminal proceedings. This is an appalling development in the US. One can question how this can happen in a civilized country.

In the present time, we are lacking in symbolical consciousness (cf. Winther, 2009, here). As a consequence we are only capable of thinking in nearly mathematical terms. Since it has all the bodily organs, a rationally determined ethics accords the fetus with human value. This is a typical example of “sun-consciousness”. Our inability in the symbolic realm has divested us of the rituals, well-known to primitive man, by which the child is taken up into the fellowship of men, thus acquiring manhood and full human value. As a consequence, nothing matters except a rationalistic ethics. The offense against the woman matters not either. So this is a form of fundamentalism, because it displays this typical lack of “moon consciousness”, which would allow people to live in a symbolical realm.

Fundamentalist thought is on the increase in society. Feminists, for their part, lack insight into areas of symbol formation and the unconscious. In practice, they work to repress female nature and think only in terms of achievement. The fixation on categories of scientific sun-consciousness has led to moon-consciousness being repressed. By example, on the radio I overheard a discussion about how to achieve gender equality among elk hunters. Allegedly, there must be equally many female and male elk hunters in the wood. But the argument that women ought to be involved to 50% in everything is merely sterile mathematics. I am living in a country that has practically adopted feminism as state ideology and am now seeing the effects of it. It lacks relevance what is written in feminist philosophical books, “for every tree is judged by its fruit.”

Psychotherapist voices

Young women are today gradually losing their mental health. Female psychotherapists take note of women’s unhappy condition. Von Franz (“The Feminine in Fairy Tales”, 1993) argues that “[man] in our civilization is ahead of woman in the civilizing process” (p.26). She discusses the “obvious inferiority of women” in today’s world. Barbara Hannah (“Encounters with the Soul”, 1991) analyzes patients’ difficulties in taking psychological responsibility for their lives. A typical theme is that a woman must abandon her fixation on power, and affirm her longing to be “overpowered” by a man (p.226).

Kathrin Asper (“The Abandoned Child Within”, 1993) points at certain problems in modern psychotherapy. It seems very difficult for some patients to achieve psychological autonomy through the conscious assimilation of their dark sides, and their shadow remains projected. Due to the fact that the feminine archetype is repressed in our time, a woman might find it hard to affirm her feminine nature. It results in a pathology of ego weakness, a hindrance to psychological maturation and an impediment for a successful therapy.

Colette Dowling (“The Cinderella Complex”, 1981) says that women rarely take a genuine responsibility for their own lives. They retain a childish wish of being tended on, like a sweet princess. If they have the choice to put themselves in a situation of psychological dependency, then they make this choice, rather than developing their personality and talents.

Liam Hudson & Bernadine Jacot (“The Way Men Think”, 1991) say that women retain a dependency on the mother, whereas men have a much stronger drive to break free. The authors say that the consequences of this are enormous. Men can develop an “abstract passion” and a greater individual freedom, thanks to the continual source of energy that the emancipative “wound” provides. This means that men have a capacity of being objective, of seeing the truth. Women have no big passion for truth.

Marie-Louise von Franz (“Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche”, 1999) says that the feminists are projecting their own inferior side (“animus”) on their male superiors, and therefore regard them as tyrants (p.248). The phenomenon is grounded in the repression of their own femininity to the advantage of their own animus (their inner masculinity), which is covertly worshipped. Feminists are therefore secretly attracted to the dominating male, and are unconsciously drawn to tyrants, who are often chosen as partners. Unconsciousness always creates this kind of repercussion.

Political consequences

Arguably, if women continue to advance to power in society, the consequence is that society will undergo infantilization, a danger discussed in my article ‘An Intrusion of Matriarchal Consciousness’ (here). There are already too many infantile men in places of power — we don’t need more people of this ilk. In Sweden, Mona Sahlin aspires to become Prime Minister. She is Sweden’s foremost representative of “political infantilism”, said Kjell-Olof Feldt, a former Minister of Finance who belongs to the same party. Former Prime Minister, Göran Persson, belonging to the same party, said that she virtually lacks the capacity to think for herself.

Such people have as their foremost goal to encompass the whole of humanity in a global Kindergarten. They are followers of diverse “ideologies of unconsciousness” that attempt to inhibit the emancipative drive present in the Western male, which liberates from unconscious identity. Therefore they have a fondness of immigrants from backward regions of the world, especially African immigrants, who lack a strong drive of emancipation, and are often fully content living in a motherly society.

Feminism does not only damage women psychologically, it also poses a danger in politics. Obviously, if women with an underdeveloped consciousness and sophomoric outlook on life take charge of institutions and states, it will have destructive consequences. It is not the question that half the population should be excluded from certain occupations; rather, certain people should not be voted for. In the US, a woman named Sarah Palin aspired at the Vice Presidency post. Suffice it to say that she doesn’t belong in the White House. In earlier times, this was self-evident, but thanks to feminism people actually see such a woman as suitable for the presidency. Comparatively, should former heavy-weight champion Mike Tyson run for President, he wouldn’t get many votes. His own fans would understand that he doesn’t belong in the White House.

Today, people repress the insight that women, as a rule, aren’t mature enough to take charge of power. As they haven’t acquired psychological independency, most women cannot produce genuinely their own thoughts. They have abandoned a way of thinking which is natural for themselves, and gone over to parroting men.

Economical independency and professional success acquired by women are factors that are being overestimated in today’s world. Women’s inner souls haven’t kept pace. The female collective ought to devote more time to soul development, rather than grasping for power. Arguably, in the female collective, a long period of introversion is called for.

Psychological suffering

The female ideal is to be neurotically obsessed with making a career, at daytime. During rest of the day, they should be neurotically obsessed with sexual and romantic life. This explains the high prevalence of severely disturbed women in today’s society. Luckily, woman has a refuge in childbearing, which keeps her connected with Mother Earth. In my country, the demands on young women have increased greatly, i.e. that they should be successful, beautiful, as well as sexually experienced. As a consequence they become depressed, cut themselves, and develop diverse forms of addiction. In today’s media, the worsening state of young women is often discussed. Many females solve their problem by practicing the well-known scapegoat stratagem. These are the worst kind, the “vampire women”, discussed by von Franz (see below).

The problem of psychological independency is especially pronounced among immigrant females in Sweden. The younger among them tend to be oppressed and victimized by family and relatives. Accordingly, they go to the social authorities and require a new apartment at a secret address. However, after living alone for a while they cannot tolerate their independent life anymore, so they tend to go back to their tyrant families, who won’t even allow them to visit a café. This is a notorious phenomenon. Almost all victimized immigrant daughters go back to a miserable existence, unable to develop psychological independency. They need an authority to rule them.

On the other hand, among Western feminists, this authoritarian animus, being secretly worshipped, is projected onto men, who are then accused of being tyrants. But it is really woman’s own animus, her own unconscious masculinity. If women could only admit that this is how they function, they could begin to grow and develop. But as long as the conflict is retained and they persist in projecting their own oppressor, who really represents their own longing after subservience, then their neurosis will subsist.

Of course, as women tend to suffer from this condition they have a hard time thinking for themselves. They are inclined to rely on authority figures and diverse “-isms”, especially feminism. This is glaringly obvious to anybody having been part of an intellectual context. Hudson & Jacot explain that “passionate abstraction” derives from the male wound obtained at the natural emancipation process, which has made the male a creature driven. “[The] wound leads the male mind to pursue enterprises in the inanimate world with intense — and, at root, intensely personal — passion.” (Hudson & Jacot, 1991, p.81) Women lack this passion while they remain in symbiosis with the Mother.

Unconscious lifeway

An unconscious lifestyle will always have evil consequences, as victimization and unconsciousness always go hand in hand. Feminism belongs to the anti-psychological ideologies that support such a development. I call them “cocoon-theories”, as they spin the subject into a theoretical cocoon where he/she is sheltered from conscious realization. Theory is used as protection against individual understanding; it’s a sort of armour. Thus, theory can be utilized as an automatic rejection mechanism, whereby the truth is rebuffed. In this way the subject is relieved of the painful process of becoming a true individual, something which would move him/her out of comfortable identification with the group. Individuation is experienced as so frightful that people resort to cocoon-theories, including the solution of scapegoating and victimization, just to avoid becoming conscious.

In this manner the stability of an inferior ego consciousness is prolonged. In the near future, we will see an upsurge of evil and hatred, not the least among women in the Western world. Behind the ideal of unconsciousness the devil is gaining ground. A low conscious level notoriously brings up the motif of murder. Characters such as “Jihad Jane” and “Jihad Jamie” are merely small indicators of what’s moving under the surface.

Feminists have always supported a lifestyle of unconsciousness. For instance, they have argued that a woman who gives expression to her sexuality to the full, is a liberated woman. Truth is, she is capable of behaving like this because she has no real comprehension of what she is doing. She has no other concept of it than a pleasurable physical exercise. Thus, she is largely unconscious of sexuality. The result is that her sexual life is obsessive and neurotic, because it has formed an unconscious complex. She is caught up in an enigma. Had she not been lacking in moral consciousness, she would have had a problem instead, which is much better than unconscious obsession. Conscious people have problems, unconscious people have neuroses.

Sexuality is something that resides on the inside. Sexual maturity is not equal to sexual experience. Nobody believes that a wino man is a wine connoisseur. Nobody should think that a whore, or a modern-day sexually liberated woman, has insights into the spirit of sexuality. If feminism had learnt the lesson of psychology, they would know what constitutes liberation, namely the realization of unconscious contents, leading to a higher level of consciousness. Thus, feminism has made women more fettered than ever, by elevating an unconscious ideal.

Victimization

Collective unconsciousness in humanity promotes murder-ideologies. I discuss this in my articles, ‘The Blood Sacrifice’ (here), ‘The Psychodynamics of Terrorism’ (here), and ‘Symbolic Poverty’ (here). The act of killing symbolically represents the integration of an unconscious content with consciousness, as exemplified in the Aztec blood sacrifice. It points at an inner urge of conscious expansion. The drive toward individual consciousness is a disruptive power, which is being placated when the motif of integration is ritually manifested.

Such horrific associations seem exaggerated, but bear in mind that the motives obtain unconsciously, while victimization in the outer world often comes to expression in more surreptitious ways, as exemplified by the very topical vampire myth. M-L von Franz says in “Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales” (2002):

Regarding Rinkrank being a robber, it is one of the activities of the animus life of a woman to steal, to suck life from other people. Such a woman becomes a vampire because she has no life in herself. But she needs life and so must take it where she finds it. The negative devil-animus kills every feminine aspect of life. (pp.22-23)

Notably, von Franz likens this “Rinkrank”, an unconscious factor in female life, to the pre-Christian Wotan, which underlied the collective Nazi regression. Feminists don’t like to recall women’s role in this. ‘It was the women’s vote’, remarked Hermann Rauschning in 1939, ‘that brought Hitler to triumph’. This connection is paradoxical. Why would emancipated women in the Weimar republic, in an atmosphere of sexual liberation, and with constitutionally guaranteed equality, vote for a party that was a dedicated opponent of female emancipation, that viewed females as inferior beings whose main task was to bear children and look after the home? (cf. Evans, 1976, pp.123f)

The explanation might be what Dowling observes, namely a marked female inclination toward psychological dependency. Instead of developing their inner personality, women notoriously fall into the trap of ultimate male chauvinism, symbolized by the fairytale figure Rinkrank. This would also explain the paradoxical attraction, among women, for Islamism. The argument builds on an unconscious factor present in the female psyche itself. It is really the fountainhead of “masculoid thinking”, namely the negative animus, which is the spectre that possesses the feminists. What will happen in the future, whenever a new Rinkrank appears on the political scene?

As history shows, the lifestyle of unconsciousness always brings this consequence: the motif of murder, and perhaps even cannibalism in some form. Cannibalism is also enacted ritually in stealing, pulling out gold fillings in teeth, etc. The effects of an ideology of unconsciousness is exemplified in Lutheranism. Martin Luther, who invented the doctrine of ‘sola fide’ or “by faith alone” asserts that man is restored by faith or belief alone, to the exclusion of all human efforts. Hence it’s enough to believe in Stalin, or Mao’s Little Red Book. An anti-psychological ideology of unconsciousness is always compensated by the motif of murder and cannibalism. Accordingly, Luther wrote to the heads of states and urged them to take action in the Jew question (vid. Luther, 1543). His idea was to have their property and money confiscated, have them drafted into forced labor, or expelled for all time. He even advocates their murder, an idea which the Nazis later picked up. This shadowy concept always accompanies the Kindergarten ideologies that expect all people to be like sheep.

In the Passion, the Christ is murdered, parted from his belongings, and finally consumed in the Eucharist. This mythological image serves the purpose of making people conscious of the archetype, to prevent them from succumbing to it. That’s why the Christ represents the truth. When the archetype of conscious expansion, which is the dying god, emerges so strongly that it takes possession of the personality, the Kindergarten companions will become murderous. In Mao’s China, during the “Cultural Revolution”, whenever a person was branded a traitor, people used to gather around, already equipped with knives to cut themselves a piece of flesh.

Conclusion

By focusing on the outer world, “social action”, etc., instead of taking responsibility of the inner soul, feminists circumvent the demands of individuation. On the inside, they remain little girls who long after a “strong man” to assume control over their lives. The argument builds on female psychological authors and their experiences of women.

An infantile collectivistic outlook on life, notorious among women and immigrants from backward countries, will lead, firstly, to the evils of harassment and mobbing, stealing and robbing (the procedure of torture), and then to murder. These evils are on the increase in Western society, because people more and more adhere to the ideal of an unconscious lifeway, instead of taking responsibility for the development of their own personality.

There is another alternative, for a woman, than putting herself in a position of psychological dependence. Other than career and material aspirations, she can turn to inner growth, to acquire a true psychological independence. Economical independence is considerably overestimated. So my point is that neither careerism nor being tied to domestic duties are good alternatives. Feminism has damaged women, but the solution is not to take on the housewife role again. Womankind should reconquer “moon consciousness”, as they can be said to be responsible for this side of existence.

I do not provide support for a backlash in women’s issues. I take a stand against the feminine dependence on “the strong man”. My argument is that after having achieved material independence, women should now devote themselves to psychological independence. This calls for a period of introversion, which means that issues of economical status and position in society are toned down.

© M. Winther 2010

References

Asper, K. (1993). The Abandoned Child Within. Fromm Intl.

Dowling, C. (1981). The Cinderella Complex: Women’s Hidden Fear of Independence. Summit Books.

Evans, R.J. (1976). ‘German Women and the Triumph of Hitler’. The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 48, No. 1. The University of Chicago Press.

Franz, M-L von (2002). Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales. Inner City Books.

    --------       (1999). Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche. Shambhala.

    --------       (1993). The Feminine in Fairy Tales. Shambhala.

Hannah, B. (1991) Encounters with the Soul. Chiron Publications.

Hudson, L. & Jacot, B. (1991). The Way Men Think. Yale University Press.

Luther, M. (1543). On the Jews and their Lies. (Von den Jüden und iren Lügen. Wittenberg, 1543.)

Winther, M. (2008). ‘An Intrusion of Matriarchal Consciousness’. (here)

    --------    (2009). ‘Symbolic Poverty’. (here)