The Animus Problem
Explaining Rising Feminism
Personal opinion:
21th century has seen an unprecedented rise in feminism. It is clear that women mustn’t be oppressed, and have equal rights. However, among female friends I observe that there is an unconscious desire to challenge the dominance of masculinity. I often see a spontaneous surge of masculine-complex taking over in females, which indicates lack of integration. The value of femininity is being undermined by females.
The new world increasingly undermines the ways of the Anima. There is a need to come to an understanding how feminine values are being corroded. Issue of feminist movements lies in an attempt uproot an millennium old patriarchy and introducing new systems without learning the tradeoffs.
Here is an attempt to find an explanation in psychoanalytic literature. Following is the book summary of Anima & Animus written by Emma Jung, wife of prominent thinker in the west, Carl Jung. Some exposure to Jungian psychology might help.
Introduction:
Anima (feminine) & Animus (masculine) belong on the one hand to the individual conscious and on the other hand are rooted in the collective unconscious, thus forming a connecting link or bridge between the personal and the impersonal, the conscious and the unconscious.
C.G. Jung understands these figures to be function complexes behaving in ways compensatory to the outer personality, that is, behaving as if they were inner personalities and exhibiting the characteristics which are lacking in the outer, and manifest, conscious personality.
For ex: In a man, his outward/conscious personality is made of animus (masculine), and his hidden unconscious side is of anima (feminine). Unconscious tries to compensate for the conscious, and hence a man has anima (feminine) in the unconscious in less developed form.
3 factors that determine the characteristics of Anima/Animus.
The character of these figures is not determined only by the latent sexual characteristics they represent; it is conditioned by the experience each person has had in the course of his or her life with representatives of the other sex, and also by the collective image of woman carried in the psyche of the individual man, and the collective image of man carried by the woman.
Complexity involved in understanding the inner psychic functions,
Here I shall attempt to present certain aspects of the animus without, however, laying claim to a complete comprehension of this extraordinarily complex phenomenon. I intend to limit myself here to the ways in which the animus appears in its relation to the individual and to consciousness.
Conscious and Outward Manifestations of the Animus
The premise from which I start is that in the animus we are dealing with a masculine principle. But how is this masculine principle to be characterized? Here Emma Jung refers to Goethe for 4 stages of animus.
Power or Will corresponds very well to the first stage, the deed follows, then the word, and finally, as the last stage, meaning.
For the primitive woman, or the young woman, or for the primitive in every woman, a man distinguished by physical prowess becomes an animus figure.
Typical examples are the heroes of legend, or present- day sports celebrities, cowboys, bull fighters, aviators, and so on. For more exacting women, the animus figure is a man who accomplishes deeds, in the sense that he directs his power toward something of great significance.
Symptoms of Animus Problem:
Animus images representing the stages of power and deed are projected upon a hero figure. But there are also women in whom this aspect of masculinity is already harmoniously coordinated with the feminine principle and lending it effective aid.
These are the active, energetic, brave, and forceful women. But also there are those in whom the integration has failed, in whom masculine behavior has overrun and suppressed the feminine principle.
These are the over-energetic, ruthless, brutal, men-women, the Xanthippe who are not only active but aggressive. In many women, this primitive masculinity is also expressed in their erotic life, and then their approach to love has a masculine aggressive character and is not, as is usual in women, involved with and determined by feeling but functions on its own, apart from the rest of the personality, as happens predominantly with men.
On the whole, however, it can be assumed that the more primitive forms of masculinity have already been assimilated by women. There have long been women whose strength of will, purposefulness, activity, and energy serve as helpful forces in their otherwise quite feminine lives. The problem of the woman of today seems rather to lie in her attitude to the animus-logos, to the masculine-intellectual element in the narrower sense; because the extension of consciousness in general, greater consciousness in all fields, seems to be an inescapable demand — as well as a gift — of our time. One expression of this is the fact that along with the discoveries and inventions of the last fifty years, we have also had the beginning of the so-called woman’s movement, the struggle of women for equal rights with men.
Need for Woman to pursue intellectual activity:
Happily, we have today survived the worst product of this struggle, the “bluestocking.” Woman has learned to see that she cannot become like a man because first and foremost she is a woman and must be one. However, the fact remains that a certain sum of masculine spirit has ripened in woman’s consciousness and must find its place and effectiveness in her personality. To learn to know these factors, to coordinate them so that they can play their part in a meaningful way, is an important part of the animus problem.
From time to time we hear it said that there is no necessity for woman to occupy herself with spiritual or intellectual matters, that this is only an idiotic aping of man, or a competitive drive betokening megalomania.
If the problem is not faced, if woman does not meet adequately the demand for intellectual activity, the animus becomes autonomous and negative, and works destructively on the individual herself and in her relations to other people.
This fact can be explained as follows: if the possibility of spiritual functioning is not taken up by the conscious mind, the psychic energy intended for it falls into the unconscious, and there activates the archetype of the animus. Possessed of the energy that has flowed back into the unconscious, the animus figure becomes autonomous, so powerful, indeed, that it can overwhelm the conscious ego, and thus finally dominate the whole personality.
3 reasons for problems of Animus:
In effectiveness of religion
In many respects, this is the case with the woman of today. In the first place, she seldom finds satisfaction in the established religion, especially if she is a Protestant. The church which once to a large extent filled her spiritual and intellectual needs no longer offers her this satisfaction.
Formerly, the animus, together with its associated problems, could be transferred to the beyond (for to many women the Biblical Father-God meant a metaphysical, superhuman aspect of the animus image), Only now when this can no longer be achieved, does our problem arise.
Rise of Birth Control
A further reason for the existence of a problem regarding the disposal of psychic energy is that through the possibility of birth control a considerable sum of energy has been freed. It is doubtful whether woman herself can rightly estimate how large is this sum which was previously needed to maintain a constant state of readiness for her biological task.
Advances in Technology
A third cause lies in the achievements of technology that substitute new means for so many tasks to which woman previously applied her inventiveness and her creative spirit.
There are many women who, when they have reached the place where they are confronted by intellectual demands, say, “I would rather have another child,” in order to escape or at least to postpone the uncomfortable and disturbing demand. But sooner or later a woman must accommodate herself to meet it, for the biological demands naturally decrease progressively after the first half of life so that in any case a change of attitude is unavoidable, if she does not want to fall victim to a neurosis or some other form of illness.
Increased consciousness in modern world:
our time seems quite generally to require a widening of consciousness. Thus, in psychology, we have discovered and are investigating the unconscious; in physics, we have become aware of rays and waves up till now were imperceptible and not part of our conscious knowledge.
Furthermore, telegraph, telephone, radio, and technically perfected instruments of every sort bring remote things near, expanding the range of our sense perceptions over the whole earth and even far beyond it. In all of this, the extension and illumination of consciousness is expressed.
The increase in consciousness implies a leading over of psychic energy into new paths. All culture, as we know, depends on such a deflection, and the capacity to bring it about is what distinguishes men from animals.
But this process involves great difficulties; indeed, it affects us almost like a sin, a misdeed, as is shown in such myths as the Fall of man, or the theft of fire by Prometheus, and that is how we may experience it in our own lives. Nor is this astonishing since it concerns the interruption or reversal of the natural course of events, a very dangerous venture.
For this reason, this process has always been closely connected with religious ideas and rites. Indeed, the religious mystery, with its symbolical experience of death and rebirth, always means this mysterious and miraculous process of transformation.
Tragic position between animal and God
As is evident in the myths just mentioned concerning the Fall of man and the stealing of fire by Prometheus, it is the logos — that is, knowledge, consciousness, in a word — that lifts man above nature. But this achievement brings him into a tragic position between animal and God. Because of it, he is no longer the child of mother nature; he is driven out of paradise but also, he is no god, because he is still tied inescapably to his body and its natural laws, just as Prometheus was fettered to the rock. Although this painful state of suspension, of being torn between spirit and nature, has long been familiar to man, it is only recently that woman has really begun to feel the conflict. And with this conflict, which goes hand in hand with an increase of consciousness, we come back to the animus problem that eventually leads to the opposites, to nature and spirit and their harmonization.
Animus Projection through a Man:
How do we experience this problem? First of all, we become aware of it in the outside world. The child usually sees it in the father, or in a person taking the place of the father; later, perhaps, in a teacher or elder brother, husband, friend. For the most part, direct access to these objective forms of the spirit is not possible for a woman; she finds it only through a man, who is her guide and intermediary. This guide nod intermediary then becomes the bearer or representative of the animus image; in other words, the animus is projected upon him. As long as the projection succeeds, that is, as long its the image corresponds to a certain degree with the bearer, there is no real conflict.
Successful projection → No Conflict → Animus remains unconscious
On the contrary, this state of affairs seems to be, in a certain sense, perfect, especially when the man who is the spiritual intermediary is also at the same time perceived as a human being to whom one has a positive, human relationship. If such a projection can be permanently established this might be called an ideal relationship, ideal because without conflict, but the woman remains unconscious. The fact that today it is no longer fitting to remain so unconscious seems, however, to be proved by the circumstance that many if not most women who believe themselves to be happy and content in what purports to be a perfect animus relationship are troubled with nervous or bodily symptoms, often anxiety states appear, sleeplessness and general nervousness, or physical ills such as headache and other pains, disturbances of vision, and, occasionally, lung affections.
Transference problem:
This state of being fascinated by another and wholly under his influence is well known under the term “transference,” which is nothing else than projection. However, projection means not only the transference of an image to another person, but also of the activities that go with it, so that a man to whom the animus image has been transferred is expected to take over all the functions that have remained undeveloped in the woman in question, whether the thinking function, or the power to act, or responsibility toward the outside world. In turn, the woman upon whom a man has projected his anima must feel for him, or make relationships for him, and this symbiotic relationship is, in my opinion, the real cause for the compulsive dependence that exists in these cases.
But such a state of completely successful projection is usually not of very long duration, especially not if the woman is in close relationship to the man in question.
An archetype, such as the animus represents, will never really coincide with an individual man, the less so the more individual that man is. Individuality is really the opposite of the archetype.
Anima-Animus constellation:
When this discrimination between the image and the person sets in we become aware, to our great confusion and disappointment, that the man who seemed to embody our image does not correspond to it in the least, but continually behaves quite differently from the way we think he should.
At first we perhaps try to deceive ourselves about this and often succeed relatively easily. Not only do we consciously exert force or pressure; far more frequently we quite unconsciously force our partner, by our behavior, into archetypal or animus reactions. Naturally, the same holds good for the man in his attitude toward the woman. He, too, would like to see in her the image that floats before him, and by this wish, which works like a suggestion, he may bring it about that she does not live her real self but becomes an anima figure. This, and I he fact that the anima and animus mutually constellate each other (since an anima manifestation calls forth the animus, and vice versa, producing a vicious circle very difficult to break), forms one of the worst complications in the relations between men and women.
The Animus problem - definition:
Here we come to what is most essentially meaningful in the animus problem, namely, the masculine-intellectual component within the woman herself. It seems to me that to relate to this component, to know it, and to incorporate it into the rest of the personality, are central elements of this problem, which is perhaps the most important of all those concerning the woman of today. That the problem has to do with a natural predisposition, an organic factor belonging to the individuality and intended to function, explains why the animus is able to attract psychic energy to itself until it becomes an overwhelming and autonomous figure.
I would conclude from the presence of a powerful animus figure — a so-called “possession by the animus’’ — that the person in question gives too little attention to her own masculine-intellectual logos tendency, and has either developed and applied it insufficiently or not in the right way. Perhaps this sounds paradoxical because, seen from the outside, it appears as if it were the feminine principle which is not taken sufficiently into account, since the behavior of such women seems on the surface to be too masculine and suggests a lack of femininity. But in the masculinity brought to view, I see more of a symptom, a sign that something masculine in the woman claims attention. It is true that what is primarily feminine is overrun and repressed by the autocratic entrance upon the scene of this masculinity, but the feminine element can only get into its right place by a detour that includes coming to terms with the masculine factor, the animus.
To busy ourselves simply in an intellectual or objectively masculine way seems insufficient, as can be seen in many women who have completed a course of study and practice a heretofore masculine, intellectual calling, but who, nonetheless, have never come to terms with the animus problem. Such a masculine training and way of life may well be achieved by identification with the animus, but then the feminine side is left out in the cold. What is really necessary is that feminine intellectuality, logos in the woman, should be so fitted into the nature and life of the woman that a harmonious cooperation between the feminine and masculine factors ensues and no part is condemned to a shadowy existence.
Solution:
The first stage on the right road is, therefore, the withdrawal of the projection by recognizing it as such, and thus freeing it from the object.
We see before us the task of learning to know the nature and effect of this factor, this “man in us,” in order to distinguish him from ourselves. If this is not done, we are identical with the animus or possessed by it, a state that creates the most unwholesome effects. For when the feminine side is so overwhelmed and pushed into the background by the animus, there easily arise depressions, general dissatisfaction, and loss of interest in life.
Therefore it is a great help to observe the effect one has on other people, and to judge from their reactions whether these can possibly have been called forth by an unconscious animus identification. This orientation derived from other people is an invaluable aid in the laborious process — often beyond one’s individual powers — of clearly distinguishing the animus and assigning it to its rightful place. Indeed, I think that without relationship to a person with respect to whom it is possible to orient oneself again and again, it is almost impossible ever to free oneself from the demonic clutch of the animus. In a state of identification with the animus, we think, say, or do something in the full conviction that it is we who are doing it, while in reality, without our having been aware of it, the animus has been speaking through us.
Often it is very difficult to realize that a thought or opinion has been dictated by the animus and is not one’s own most particular conviction, because the animus has at its command a sort of aggressive authority and power of suggestion.
It derives this authority from its connection with the universal mind, but the force of suggestion it exercises is due to woman’s own passivity in thinking and her corresponding lack of critical ability. Such opinions or concepts, usually brought out with great aplomb, are especially characteristic of the animus.
Tradeoffs
One of the most important ways that the animus expresses itself, then, is in making judgments, and as it happens with judgments, so it is with thoughts in general. From within, they crowd upon the woman in already complete, irrefutable forms. Or, if they come from without, she adopts them because they seem to her somehow convincing or attractive.
But usually she feels no urge to think through and thus really to understand the ideas which she adopts and, perhaps, even propagates further. Her undeveloped power of discrimination results in her meeting valuable and worthless ideas with the same enthusiasm or with the same respect, because anything suggestive of mind impresses her enormously and exerts an uncanny fascination upon her. This accounts for the success of so many swindlers who often achieve incomprehensible effects with a sort of pseudo-spirituality. On the other hand, her lack of discrimination has a good side; it makes the woman unprejudiced and therefore she frequently discovers and appraises spiritual values more quickly than a man, whose developed critical power tends to make him so distrustful and prejudiced that it often takes him considerable time to see a value which less prejudiced persons have long since recognized.
In general, it can be said that feminine mentality manifests an undeveloped, childlike, or primitive character; instead of the thirst for knowledge, curiosity; instead of judgment, prejudice; instead of thinking, imagination or dreaming; instead of will, wishing.
Where a man takes up objective problems, a woman contents herself with solving riddles; where he battles for knowledge and understanding, she contents herself with faith or superstition, or else she makes assumptions. Clearly, these are well-marked pre-stages that can be shown to exist in the minds of children as well as in those of primitives.
Reference: Animus and Anima by Emma Jung (summary from first 25 pages)
Similar material:
Classical view: Anima/Animus
Modern view: Anima/Animus
Book: The I and the Not-I, Chapter 5, Mary Esther Harding