For two thousand years, but especially for the last 100, the world has laboured through the Age of Pisces – masculine times, where leadership and aggression have been paramount, and mankind has followed a model where we needed to be told what to do.
That guidance would be provided by the Church, or the State, or the Military, or by Corporations/Employers, who supposedly “knew” what to do!
Most often this guidance has centred around possession and ownership, either of goods, people, property or lands, with the result that “defence”, and “righteous action” have often been invoked in the name of retention or accumulation.
All these are masculine – ie. (the modern version of) Hunter/Gatherer – traits.
Sales and Marketing, some of the cornerstones of our economy, have for long operated along the same lines. So too has the Banking system.
With the change to the Age of Aquarius, soon after the Millennium, came the opening up of the Internet – a new method of communication, which, in time, has delivered new ways of commerce.
In the last 4 or 5 years specifically, much money has been made, in Banking, Finance, Property and Stock Markets, as well as on the Internet. The common factor being the huge sums made by a small percentage of people, or corporations, always with the promise of riches for many, if they buy this or that affiliate program, or “special offer” – very few of which actually deliver.
Masculinity rules in the Motor World too, and look at the mess that is in, with urgent bail-outs for two of the Big Three in the US. Why? We are tempted to ask when we see the acres of unsold metal parked at strategic points around the various continents, with little likelihood now of it being sold, because the World has moved on from gas-guzzlers.
When we eventually start buying again, we will want fuel-efficient motors, maybe even multi-fuel solutions, with low carbon-impact factors.
This all mounts up to the new frontier we arrive at on December 31st – the World knows it is not well.
It has developed a condition known by ancient peoples as “life out of balance”, what the Hopi Indians call “koyaanisqatsi”. It is time to get back to basics.
We all enter 2009 certain in the knowledge that we need, jointly, to achieve repair and nurturing (whatever we actually choose to call them) on a global scale in order to recover from the economic instability. What we MUST recognise too is that we do NOT want to go back to the way we were.
Several posts appearing recently on Twitter, and thought leader blogs such as that of Chris Brogan, and Jim Connolly, have led me to conclude that the time has come for a “Feminine Economy”, and that it has already begun within the new methods of communication we now use on a daily basis.
In many cases “the job” has represented a “comfort zone”. Many jobs will be lost in the coming 12 months – that only means that the functions are no longer required, the real people who performed those functions are still needed for their own unique contribution, just not by their current “employer”.
The crucial factor is whether those people have recognised what their unique contribution really is. If not, then they too may have a “life out of balance” – the condition that leads to dis-ease, dissatisfaction, anger and resentment at a personal level, just the same as it does at a global level.
Shirley P Burggraf recognised, as far back as 1997, that:-
"In a world in which people are free to choose between caring and competitive roles, an economic system that disproportionately rewards the competitors and beggars the caretakers will eventually lose its ability to compete because resources are increasingly diverted away from society's basic function of providing a civilized context for human life."
“Disasters are a form of opportunity… a time to reinvent, renew, re-envision and re-engineer” according to John T Unger
“Rules only exist until new rules are created, so make your own!” said Amrita Chandra recently, writing for the Chris Brogan Blog on What Artists Can Teach Everyone About Social Media.
Now, Social Networking, and the spread of a wide variety of Social Media, suggests that these are the 12 Facets of the “Feminine Economy”, and why it’s time has come:-
- Communicative – let’s talk, and commune, more, to learn the others point of view;
- Non-Aggressive –wars, and banking crises, all cost a lot of money, and ALL start from posturing;
- Intuitive – listen more, learn more, and we will feel & understand more;
- Networking – getting together for fun and common interest often drives things forward;
- Wisdom – only comes from experience, and trying new ways;
- Touch – everything we do, or consume, has an impact (often adverse) on someone, somewhere;
- Cafe-Based – chat, gossip maybe, small scale, can still lead to development of ideas;
- Social – the more we can reject the anti-social, the more chance there is of a longer lasting solution;
- Nurturing – will be essential to grow & thrive again, this time under New Rules;
- Heart-Sell – has to replace Hard Sell, because that is what got us in the mess in the first place;
- Micro-Finance – the new way for local communities, the whole system needs developing again, differently;
- Internet – the Web that brings us all together, to strive towards AND ACHIEVE all of the above.
Time for a change? A New Year’s Resolution? What do you think?
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