Let's Talk About Toxic Femininity

We can't keep calling out men while ignoring our own shadow side.

I'll start with something I don't think I'm supposed to say.

In the past several months, three separate men have shared with me, privately and cautiously, a version of the same story. Each of them, in their professional or personal lives, had been pursued by women who knew full well they were married or in committed relationships. Pursued for sex or a relationship. Persistently. Without apology.

In these particular instances, the men told me that they didn't know how to handle the situation. They deflected, avoided, or directly refused the advances, but the experience made them feel incredibly uncomfortable. One of them even changed jobs due to how frequently it was happening.

None of these men had told their partners. None had told their friends. And none of them were talking about it publicly: First, they didn't want to sound like they were bragging to other men or describe something that would feel threatening to their partners. Second, they were uncomfortable and embarrassed. And third, in the current cultural climate, they knew that any man raising a complaint about female sexual misconduct would possibly be met with some version of dismissal: "Oh, so now you know how it feels." Or, worse yet, having the story flipped on them and being perceived as inviting the attention or as the actual aggressor.

Would some men have accepted? Of course. That's a separate discussion. But many men wouldn't, and they aren't getting the credit they deserve.

As one of them said to me, quietly: "I understand that this has happened to women in far greater numbers and in much worse ways. But two wrongs don't make a right."

He's correct. And I think it's time we said so out loud.

First, a word about "toxic masculinity"

I'll be honest: I don't love the term. Labeling an entire gender's energy as toxic feels imprecise and unfair when what we're really describing is the shadow side of masculine energy: the over-expression of traits that, in balance, are genuinely valuable. Strength becomes aggression. Protection becomes control. Confidence becomes dominance. We should be talking about bad behavior as bad behavior, not labeling masculinity as bad.

The relationship and sexuality coach Kim Anami puts it well: "The only thing toxic about masculinity is the lack of it." Meaning: it's not masculinity itself that causes harm - it's the distortion of it. Healthy masculine energy is protective, caring, loyal, and confident without arrogance.

But since "toxic masculinity" is the cultural shorthand we've agreed on, let's use the same framework and apply it honestly to women too.

Toxic femininity, then, is the over-expression of the shadow side of feminine energy. And it is real, it is present, and we are largely not talking about it.

The shadow side of the feminine

There are many angles through which we could explore the shadow side of the feminine. In my own life, the womb awakening tradition  - embodied, feminine devotional practices which I trained in and now teach - has been particularly valuable, especially because of the ways it overlaps with my training in Traditional Chinese Medicine and Qi Gong. In this work, similar to other ancient traditions, femininity is explored through archetypes and elements found in nature, each with a strength and a shadow. In womb awakening practices, here's the lens we look through:

Archetypes:

The Maiden: playful, innocent, lighthearted at her best. At her worst: immature, naive, teasing without accountability.

The Mother or Creatrix: nurturing, sensual, deeply creative and generative in her fullness. In her shadow: overbearing, controlling, blocked in her own creative expression, or anxious and needy.

The Elder/Crone: wise, discerning, a keeper of deep knowing. In her shadow: closed-minded, arrogant, the woman who has decided she doesn't need to learn anything new.

The elements add another layer of understanding. Ancient traditions including Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Native American wisdom, and Womb Awakening among others, believed that what we see in the macrocosm of nature is also physically and energetically expressed within the human. When these elements are out of balance, our life, our health, and our emotions are also out of balance.

Earth over-expressed becomes smothering; under-expressed becomes neediness and self-neglect. In balance, it is grounded, nurturing, steady, secure. Air over-expressed is ungrounded, untethered intuition; under-expressed is a woman cut off from her own inner knowing. In balance it is intuitive, wise, connected. Water over-expressed becomes emotional flooding without boundaries; under-expressed becomes rigidity and an inability to trust or surrender. In balance it is flowing, trusting, like a river within the banks.

Fire deserves its own paragraph.

Fire, when healthy, is bright, creative, passionate and sensual - a woman fully alive in her power with clear boundaries. Fire over-expressed becomes the seductress archetype: manipulative, using sexuality, sensuality, and cunning as currency or weapon. This specific archetype, in my experience, is the most culturally recognized, maligned, and imbalanced of all the elemental archetypes. In my opinion, it is the female equivalent of unchecked power.

In a previous article, I described that healthy masculinity is not the absence of ferocity or the capacity for violence, but self-mastery over it. Healthy femininity is not the absence of seductiveness, passion, power, cunning, and manipulation but self-mastery over it.  Shining one's light, but not for the purpose of personal gain or to influence an outcome. Ideally, the bright light of one's inner fire is balanced with the virtues of the other elements: trust, surrender, intuition, nurturing, wisdom, self-love, healthy boundaries, and humility.

The goal in Womb Awakening, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Qi Gong and in life is to notice where you are out of balance. Where are you over-expressing? Where are you suppressing? What wounds created those patterns? That is the inner work. Exploring and owning your own shadows. Doing this work has been deeply transformative for me.

My own shadow

I'll be honest about mine.

Through TCM, qi gong and womb awakening work, I’ve caught myself being out of balance at times in all of the archetypes and elements listed above.  But, for me, it was the fire element that demanded the most work. My fire element went dark years ago. Certain experiences - the kind that teach a young woman that her sexuality is unsafe, that desire makes her vulnerable, that sensuality invites violation or causes her to manipulate - caused me to find the power switch and turn it off entirely.

For years I didn't recognize this as a loss. I mistook it for propriety. For safety. For being "not that kind of woman." I cut my hair off. I wore cargo shorts. Stereotypically "feminine" things like makeup or fashion were not my jam. I preferred to be self-reliant, low-maintenance, and an unthreatening friend to all.

Like many women I am friends with, I became (and still am) a caring and loyal friend to other women, the kind they could trust around their boyfriends or husbands.

I was safe. I am safe. 

Not all of this is problematic. It took me a long time to understand that there were downsides to dimming my light in this way: I had lost access to some of the ways that sexuality and sensuality make me feel alive, intense, awake, passionate, and vital.

Reclaiming my fire has been one of the most significant and tender journeys of my adult life. Learning to be sensual without being manipulative. Magnetic without trying to fill a void. Alive in my body without showing off or using that aliveness to get something - simply for the enjoyment of feeling vital, feminine, passionate, sensual. For my own sake and no one else's.

In discussing this topic with one of my closest female friends, she fully admits to blazing her way through her late teens and twenties with her fire element raging.  In listening to each other's stories, we can see how we over or under-expressed certain elements or aspects of ourselves to feel safe and secure.  The reflex to display your power outright or keep it hidden - to either hold men close or women close first - is often a subconscious choice we make that stems from our upbringing, traumas, and culture.  She and I still wipe away tears of laughter when we recall the halloween party we went to together in our early twenties: she, dressed as a sultry and sexy flapper; me, in an inflatable sumo wrestler costume.  She wondered aloud if we had actually been invited to the same party.

Women don't allow in others what they don't allow in themselves

The author Tara Mohr writes in Playing Big: women do not allow in other women what they don't allow in themselves.

I find this one of the most clarifying observations about female dynamics I've ever encountered.

If a woman has suppressed her own fire - her sensuality, her erotic aliveness - she will be viscerally triggered by a woman who hasn't. What follows is often two of the most accessible weapons in the feminine arsenal: gossip and judgment. The woman who is "too much." Too sexual. Too confident. Too visible. She becomes a target not necessarily because she has done anything wrong, but because she represents something her critics have forbidden themselves. And yes, perhaps she leans or leaned on her fire in an unhealthy way, which makes the gossip and judgment feel all the more justified for the outsiders.

This is the shadow of the feminine turned inward and outward simultaneously, wounding both the woman who expresses and the woman who suppresses. This is the sister shadow wound: throw other women under the bus to save yourself. It's ugly. All women have experienced it even if they haven't named it.

The same applies across all the archetypes and elements. The woman who has shut down her intuition may see the highly intuitive and feeling woman as flaky. The woman who has suppressed her capacity to be or feel nurtured will call other women needy or spoiled. We police in others what we fear in ourselves.

The double standard we need to name

Back to those three men.

What they described - women using sexual pursuit as a form of power, crossing clear relational boundaries, and doing so without accountability - is the fire element in its shadow expression. This is a misuse of power. It is the seductress archetype behaving badly. And it is happening more than anyone is talking about.

Here is what I want to say clearly: the progress of the last decade in holding men accountable for sexual misconduct has been necessary and important. There is still much work to do here and none of it is undone by this conversation. But true egalitarianism which is, after all, what feminism is largely about means the same standards apply to everyone.

We cannot celebrate women "owning their sexuality" when that ownership crosses into harassment, manipulation, or disrespect for another person's relationships. We cannot call out men for predatory behavior and look the other way when women exhibit the same.

Two wrongs don't make a right. They just make more hurt people.

The inner work we're all being called to do

Here is where I want to land: not in accusation, but in invitation.

We are all carrying shadows. Men and women both. They are generally related to a deep sense of fear or insecurity. We have all, at some point, over-expressed or suppressed some aspect of our nature in ways that have caused harm: to others, to ourselves, or both. The question is not whether we have a shadow. The question is whether we are willing to look at it. 

For women, that might mean asking honestly: Where is my fire out of balance? Where am I using nurturing as control, intuition as manipulation, or receptivity as passivity? What about my other elements: where am I judging in other women what I haven't yet claimed in myself? Where am I acting from insecurity? This is the work we explore gently, compassionately, and deeply in my women’s retreats.

For men, it means continuing the work of understanding the shadow of the masculine and doing that work not just because the culture demands it, but because becoming a more integrated and masterful man is its own reward. This is work I’m inspired to be a part of by helping men learn to cultivate and manage their power in a healthy way and reclaim their sense of nobility. Power within, not power over. . 

We also have to work upstream against a culture that demands stoicism from men and desirability and acquiescence from women while also emphasizing that they hold impeccable boundaries and not be TOO sexy. It’s a double bind that’s difficult to untangle. And for all of us, it means extending to each other the same compassion we are learning - slowly and imperfectly - to extend to ourselves.

Own your darkness and your light.

The feminine and the masculine are not enemies. They are partners in a very ancient, very important dance. When one side does its shadow work, it creates space for the other to do theirs. When both do it together, something remarkable becomes possible.

A healed feminine helps rebirth the masculine. A healed masculine helps spark new life in the feminine.

The best part of doing inner shadow work, for me, is the self-forgiveness that comes with it and the recovery of parts of myself that had been lost or shunned away. Seeking validation within rather than from external sources has been a deeply enjoyable journey towards emotional sovereignty. My own inner work has also allowed me to see other people's shadows from a place of compassion and forgiveness. 

Mastery of our archetypes and elements is an age-old mission that practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Martial Arts, Ayurveda, Native American Medicine, Womb Awakening and so on have strived for over the centuries. It is an ever-evolving spiral of inner and outer work. True mastery - achieving perfect balance of all elements within - may not be a realistic goal. We are human, after all. But the journey of self-exploration and self-healing that comes with examining our shadows as well as our light is an adventure that is its own reward. 

Shadow work is hard work. Owning your power safely is not easy. But it doesn't have to be all serious. Laughter and humility have been important companions on my journey.

I still have that inflatable sumo wrestler costume, after all.

Dr. Laura Chan is a Naturopathic Doctor, Acupuncturist, Qi Gong instructor, & Coach, working at the intersection of integrative medicine and energy cultivation. She works with both men and women on vitality, energetic & hormonal health, relationships, sexuality, and the conscious cultivation of life force energy. Learn more about her upcoming women’s retreat here.