This inequality places women in an uncomfortable and almost unconscious gray area where they literally do not know or value their own feminine qualities. How could they? The feminine qualities, such as connectedness, intuition and empathy, and indeed, all right-brain oriented solutions have rarely if ever, ever been valued as real or important. How could women value them? Further, females are typically lumped together with males when we refer to the human race, and not surprisingly we are forced to view ourselves as an aggressive species etc. Separate the sexes and you instantly realize that the “other” sex has a completely different history. Women do not kill, fight or act aggressively. Separate the sexes and you realize that more than fifty percent of the population is not violent and does not have a history of domination and the need to control. Females, then, do not know themselves as the better half of humanity.
However, because they are women, with female hormones, feelings and consciousness, we cannot say women do not know. Women live in their bodies, give birth and respond to female urges. Thus women today both Know and do not know themselves as females, as women and as the embodiment of the feminine principles. Most women are so far from appreciating this essence, that their first thoughts about “the feminine” are that their mothers were crazy or their female bosses were bitches. Even archetypal stories about the feminine such as Medusa, or Medea, who supposedly killed her children, are creations of the male mind. As products of the culture, women rarely move beyond these accepted male-based conceptions of their own sex. How can women ever expect to truly know themselves or value themselves equally if they do not embrace their own unique qualities?