The Domesticating Traps of Gender Expectations and Norms
What is domestication?
Domestication is the absence of being wild.
I use the term domestication to convey the experience of what occurs when we lose connection with our wild, sovereign, authentic self. This is a common outcome when we make who we think we should be more important than who we are at the core of our being. When we lose connection with our passion, purpose and ability to dream, create and evolve, we may be under the spell of domestication.
Domestication is an attempt to create powerlessness. It can also be used as a tactic to achieve dominance and power-over other people, situations and instill a collective and influential group think like Hitler created during the Holocaust. He dehumanized a population of people by claiming himself and his kin superior.
Domesticating messages quietly and unsuspectingly convey “Who you are is wrong.” The messages are composed of a unique mosaic of “shoulds” that bundle us into tightly bound ropes of an idealized self.
Inheriting cultural domestication
We’ve been indoctrinated by our cultural conditioning and handed a menu of what is ‘appropriate’ to believe, think, and feel — as well as how we must behave in order to ensure our worthiness in the world.
Domestication is curated by internalized perceptions of who we think we must be in order to be lovable, valuable and feel our belonging. Over time, these messages become hardened into our own belief systems — even when these ascribed roles don’t match our deeper desires and authentic yearnings.
To cope, we learn to compartmentalize aspects of ourselves that we feel ashamed of or that don’t fit into these social and cultural expectations. Each time we banish a part of ourselves, we fragment from our wholeness.
This causes many of us to feel disconnected from our true self, passion, curiosity, playfulness, and wonder.
To be wild is to remember and embody the fullness of who we are.
This wholeness is not limited to an identification with our self-images, but an intimate melding with the depths of stillness and wisdom that live within each one of us — regardless of our status, physical appearance, or perceived success in the material world.
When domesticating messages remain unchallenged, they silently become an invisible prison of fear, control, shame and blame.
To learn more about domestication, how it happens, and how to break from its invisible cage, visit my article What Is Domestication?
What are common forms of gender domestication?
Unbeknownst to most of us, domestication is already growing deep roots during our early developmental process, which begins while in our mother’s womb and extends through the ages of seven or eight years old.
What were you taught as a boy or girl?
Let’s take a look at some traditional domesticating expectations of men and women.
Men — Domestication through exalting a superhero persona
As an integrative coach and business consultant, I work with many male leaders. The majority of these men are committed to awakening their hearts, expanding their consciousness, and interrupting their patterns of reactivity, fear, and control. A handful of them perceive their leadership role as their spiritual path of integration and embodiment. The way they run their business, engage with complexity, keep their hearts open, and embrace their intuition requires them to cultivate a high level of self-awareness and take personal responsibility for their unconscious defensive habits.
These embodied leaders investigate with me the double-binds and blindspots that create inner conflict and spread into their corporate cultures (learn more about primal leadership in What Is Embodied Leadership?).
These revolutionaries are my modern day heroes. Each one is passionately devoted to illuminating how they domesticate themselves, others, and the systems they’re responsible for leading.
THE DOMESTICATING IMPACT OF THE MASCULINE SUPERHERO ARCHETYPE
Upon birth, many men are surreptitiously bestowed with a script of ‘how to be a man.’ The underlying message is: “If you become a superhero, you’ll prove your value and earn the right to be respected, honored and loved.”
In one fell swoop, they’ve been told to contort themselves into the force of an indestructible superhero. Each man is expected to become a socially esteemed, hyper-responsible, stoic, stable, reliable provider and protector — no matter the cost on their health and well-being.
Upholding these idealizations often requires a man to compartmentalize, domesticate, and disembody from his emotions, intuition and body wisdom. Instead, he’s culturally encouraged to merge with his intellectual capacities and ‘strength,’ often at the cost of accessing his primal instincts.
And without these instincts of intuition, heart guidance, gut feelings, and sensate-intelligence, he will no longer have the capacity to harvest from the fertile ground of the unknown. Instead he’ll panic when he can’t control uncertainty.
Instead of lingering in the unknown with curiosity and patience, most men learn that it’s more efficient to fix, solve, kill the problem, and move on. There’s no time to haste or falter.
That’s a shit-ton of pressure. No human being is invincible and a superhero all the time. That’s an insane expectation! Nor is it possible to be fully embodied without access to our primal wisdom and instinct that expand beyond intellect and reason.
Rightfully so, some men have repressed their rage at being castrated by this superhero archetype. They often don’t know why they feel implosive or express explosive push-backs until a health issue, relationship breakdown, or spiritual crisis disrupts their status quo.
To crack the armor of the superhero, these men need their internal levees to break, and allow the repressed emotions to flood through the plains of their reality. This process of deconstruction is what will help them see their domesticated and conditioned ways of being that enrage and imprison them.
In order to maintain his superhero status, many men are innocently seduced into the paradigm of power-over. Which translates into becoming hyper-focused on pursuing their personal agendas and success at any cost. Any obstacle that stands in their way becomes the target to dominate and conquer.
And, to the other extreme, some men adapt by falling on the sword for everyone else and disregarding their own needs. They may abdicate their power by withholding, withdrawing, or accommodating everyone else’s needs over their own. This can build resentment, which comes out sideways through passive-aggressive communication or collapsing into feeling passion-less, victimized, and powerless.
“The cultural domestication of the superhero persona asks a man to renounce his vulnerability by being strong and invincible.”
The Superhuman Compulsion: Busyness, Striving & Consuming
The superhuman inner voice may sound like: “I need to be strong and victorious, not emotional or indecisive. I’ll do whatever it takes to fulfill my duties as a strong, competent, reliable and loyal man.” Many men live with a painful double-bind that also says, “If I can’t uphold these expectations, I’ve failed.” This registers as death in their psyche, which is a significant psychological threat
This expression of the masculine superhero wound is the root cause of many #metoo cases. Men in authority, as business executives or spiritual teachers, who are accused of sexual, emotional and psychological abuse are crying for help. They’ve drowned in the darkness of their own psyche. They’re armored — unable to self-reflect and take ownership for their limiting beliefs and aggressive actions. These men need a system and an approach that will help them to collect the exiled parts of themselves that are acting out in destructive and violent ways.
Learn more about this phenomenon in my article, The Superhuman Compulsion.
SELF-INQUIRY:
My heart swells with reverence and gratitude to each man who courageously exposes and breaks free from the handcuffs of the superhero conditioning.
The heroic journey of deconstruction is not for the faint of heart.
Those of you who identify as male, have you felt domesticated in some version of these binary extremes?
If so, what is your version of domestication?
What would re-wilding yourself look like? What do you truly yearn for beyond any cultural or social expectations?
Women — How have we been domesticated & marginalized?
As for women, we’ve had our own versions of these domesticating entrapments with the superhuman archetype. Many of us, including myself, are continuing to dismantle and liberate ourselves from these binding roles and expectations. Until perhaps the last generation, most women were born into polarized scripts.
For example, women are labeled sluts if they desire sex, and prudes if they set sexual boundaries. In other words, no matter what choice women make around sexuality, they’re shamed.
What are the extreme expectations about how a woman should look, love, and live, in order to prove her worth and lovability?
The language of domestication is based on the duality of right and wrong. The following are two grossly generalized versions of the superwoman complex. As you read them, you’ll likely imagine variations of all kinds.
DOOR NUMBER 1
You need to become the perfect housewife and perfect mother — the energizer bunny of the household. Even if you need to scream or collapse into tears, instead, put a smile on your face. Your superhero partner (male or female) will take on the role of provider and protector, which means they need to be able to compartmentalize their feelings and intuition to uphold their role.
Feeling is your job. Therefore, on behalf of the whole system, you’re responsible for attuning to and moving stagnant and repressed emotions on behalf of your entire household. Yes, even from your anxious dog with separation anxiety. It’s a valiant contribution to become the emotional thermostat, but expect to be criticized for being the hysterical and the overly-emotional one in the family.
To keep up with the never-ending list of to-do’s, you will either become a control freak to manage your anxiety, or you will numb yourself through socially normalized addictions, such as shopping, beautifying yourself, or socializing. And, along the way you may find it difficult to be present, open-minded, and open-hearted because you can’t feel your own center anymore. And depending on the day, you’ll either think you’re broken, or that your partner is. And when it comes to sex, well… if you’re lucky, you will feel your turn-on, but most likely, it will go so far underground that your erotic expression now feels like another obligation on your endless to-do list — rather than a chance to connect, love, and feel your primal power.
Remember, chin up and smile, isn’t this what you asked for? If you feel depressed then there is something wrong with you, not the system you’re in.
Let me tell you a secret... this system of compartmentalization is the problem, not you!
DOOR NUMBER 2
If you want to sow your oats as a sovereign woman who has value and purpose beyond “being barefoot and pregnant,” then prepare for a journey of unraveling spools of domestication.
As women, we’ve been conditioned to be valued for our ability to nurture others, maintain a household, and entertain through our beauty and sexiness. We’ve been highly regarded when we serve as sparkling distractions against the backdrop of the daily grind.
Who do you wish to become?
You can pursue a career in high-tech, medicine, engineering, entrepreneurship, higher education, and even run for the first seat as a female American president. You can choose a life without children or a nuclear family — not because you’re barren and therefore damaged goods — but because you long to express yourself in a myriad of ways truest to your destiny and heart’s yearnings.
However, if you want to play in the world of high-achievers you’ll need to learn how to swim in a world of double-binds and masculine-dominated energies:
If you’re a strong and outspoken woman, you may be criticized for being a bitch or hysterical when you express your opinion.
In some settings, your physical appearance will be commented on more than your intellect, contribution, or passionate dedication.
If you draw upon your skills of attuning and tracking people who are misusing their power for personal gain, be prepared to be scapegoated for naming these shadows.
When you inquire into, or expose, antiquated systems and ways of operating that keep the elite in cushy seats while the underprivileged remain indentured servants to corporate and political hierarchies, then be prepared to be slandered or have your credibility challenged.
When you speak the truth that others don’t want to hear, you will become a threat, which may risk your reputation in various circles of influence.
You can yield into a quiet existence of compliance or become a dominatrix and use your power to control, manipulate and get what you want in order to keep pace with the dominating systems of power-over.
In the pressures of proving your power and value, you may become overly-controlling and exhausted, and thereby lose connection with your heart and softness.
reclaiming the power and skills of feminine leadership
Today’s world still predominantly reveres masculine-dominated energies as the most credible, respected, and valuable. Masculine and feminine energies are alive in all genders, and you will draw upon these energies in various ways depending on your conditioning and agendas.
If you want to take a seat and have your voice heard in any masculine-dominated system, you may feel pressured to compete by transforming into a man, or you may feel contrived to avoid ruffling feathers by becoming compliant and quiet.
Your nurturing care for the whole system, heart wisdom, and intuition may be perceived as liabilities instead of the medicine desperately needed for the world.
Sometimes ensuring your value and place of belonging as a successful woman means you’ll feel driven to sacrifice aspects of yourself in order to fit in. An inevitable choice point will present itself:
Leverage your soft-skills of nurturing, empathy, intuition, and embodied primal intelligence as a means to bring love into the dark pockets of human consciousness. Yet, this means your superpowers may frequently be dismissed, mocked, or discredited in conventional circles.
Ladies, grab your whips and handcuffs, this is the time of the dominatrix. Essentially, you’ll need to become a woman disguised as a man. You’ll need to shut down your soft-skills and empathy to prove your worth and credibility as an equal. Over time, you may no longer be able to soften, and this becomes a painful experience of fragmentation.
Whatever you chose, be prepared to jump through, and transform, the medieval hoops designed to keep you positioned as an inferior gender. We don’t have to get lost in these polarities.
Your passion and devotion to shifting outdated paradigms of power-over — from the inside-out — is needed now more than ever.
Your voice matters. Your presence and fierce power are needed.
You’re an essential harmonizing agent for the integration of the masculine and feminine energies within yourself. This is true of all being regardless of gender orientation.
SELF-INQUIRY
Those of you who identify as female, have you felt domesticated in some version of these binary extremes?
If so, what is your version of domestication?
What would re-wilding yourself look like? What do you truly yearn for beyond any cultural or social expectations?
What is the courageous path for non-binary and transgender people?
Those of you who don’t identify with your biological gender, you are valiantly cutting the edge of an important movement to re-wild despite cultural and social norms and expectations.
What are the domesticating messages that make you question your true path? What sparks shame, self-doubt, or isolation for you?
What does it take to stand in your truth despite ignorance, ridicule, and judgment from others? Your journey of reclamation has so much to teach humanity and I want to learn more.
SELF-INQUIRY
What is it like to not feel at home in your culturally prescribed identity?
What is it like to be a revolutionary and change agent dismantling facets of cultural domestication?
How do you manage feeling exiled, judged or shamed for being different than who other’s expect and need you to be?
Freeing ourselves from domesticating scripts
How do we pierce the veil of domestication?
Many people live their entire lives blind to the truth of who they are. They feverishly strive to uphold their conditioned self, but sadly in doing so, they remain unaware of a depth and quiet presence that lives within. A wellspring of wisdom that waits patiently as they anxiously strive, accumulate, and busy themselves instead.
To integrate and heal is to find acceptance for where we are — without slipping into the quicksand of shame and collapse or revving our engines into more busyness to avoid painful feelings of unworthiness or perceived failure.
It takes great courage to slow down and become mindful of how we’re reinforcing domestication every day, in our own minds, hearts, and bodies.
We dismantle the enslavement of domestication each time we embark upon a journey of expanding our self-awareness and illuminating the conditioned patterns that we identify with.
Next:
Wild Power
What Is Domestication?
Re-wilding: The Heart of an Embodied and Unbridled Existence