Attention versus attunement and presence.
Frequently in society women are conditioned to respond to and to try to incite attention. In order to feel powerful and to connect.
This removed the power lexus from their centre and however coolly and however beautifully it is done, the action is still to seek validation: essentially people pleasing. Whether through beauty, work accolades, or fitting a societal ideal such as a good wife, they are essentially in earning or masculine mode.
In the animal kingdom it is normally the male (think of the beautiful peacock) trying to earn female approval; often female animals are coloured in a less exciting way where they can camouflage for the safe raising of young, even with predators (like lions) it is the male lion with the ‘attractive’ mane.
Attention is normally short lived and it has an agenda for self: the agenda of ‘getting’ the woman. Attunement and presence is feeling the woman and responding to her. Attunement shows a desire to know her state and to respond in live time to it. Attention is surface level, it’s entertainment and it puts the woman as object not subject: switching into the masculine mode of seeking attention or earning sets women up to be used and outside of their centre. Attunement puts the woman’s experience as subject rather than what she can give and encourages a balanced flow of energy.
This subtle (but very powerful and pervasive) disempowerment of women by putting them in the masculine earning role energetically (even if they look very beautiful and feminine) and feminization of men by putting them in the consumer role (think porn, lap dancing, or any situation where women are performing for and trying to ‘get’ attention from men) is at the root in my view of much disempowerment, unhappiness and relational dysfunction. Essentially a man occupying the consumer role (which anatomically is the reverse of his role) becomes a predator while a woman adopting male mechanisms of power may feel powerful but inauthentic and hardened or performative rather than relaxed and in flow.
My personal view is this energetic inversion from the principles recognized in all ancient traditions (Shakti/Shiva in India or Yin/Yang in Taoism to name but two examples) is a result of the demonization of female desire: the demonization of women as those who desire rather than are desired. This prohibition held in place by religion and society has stripped women of their natural role and essence and in compensation men have increasingly taken women’s role and been the owners of desire with women the objects of desire.
“Attunement puts the woman’s experience as subject rather than what she can give and encourages a balanced flow of energy.”
While women, to stay safe from ‘sin’ have become devoid of desire or the objects/performers of desire: which, while it looks like desire is still there actually their true desire, their own desires remain hidden as they are acting, indeed while desire is often imitated in performance, the true desire – that which empowers and is prohibited in society – lies underground dressed up as acting where is remains controllable and less threatening and ultimately entirely absent despite appearances.