🙄Taoism and women

  

  MUJER Y MUNDO EN LA PERSPECTIVA TAOÍSTA

Conference in Spanish on Taoism and women

 presented by Gerardo López Sastre

Commentary

There is something about the title that feels misleading from the very beginning. Even after listening to the lecture, —with its engaging subject, coherent structure, and the speaker’s evident warmth—, that the initial feeling remains. Something still does not fit.

At the heart of the issue is the following line of reasoning:

                          I.            Society is patriarchal. For centuries, qualities traditionally associated with men have dominated political institutions. As a result, society and the planet are now facing profound crises.

                       II.            To correct this imbalance, we must bring qualities traditionally associated with women into positions of power.

                    III.            The conclusion, then, is simple: we must empower women.

 

My response is different

If we approach masculine and feminine qualities from a Taoist perspective, we quickly discover that such categories are not fixed realities. There is no purely masculine or purely feminine, just as there is no absolute black or white, hot or cold. Even yin and yang are not separate entities. They are symbolic ways of describing the dynamic interplay of complementary forces as it appears within the limited perspective of human experience.

Yin is associated with qualities such as darkness, coldness, receptivity, inwardness, and the feminine. From these arise virtues often linked to it: patience, empathy, gentleness, and compassion. Yet these associations are symbolic, not essential. To call something yin simply means that it contains less yang. The concept serves as a diagnostic tool, a way of recognizing imbalance. If an excess of yin is present, the qualities associated with yang can help restore equilibrium.

Night is yin and day is yang, yet their truth lies not in opposition but in their continuity. From this perspective, it should be obvious that every human being contains both tendencies. Their relative strength shifts throughout life and according to circumstance. At times, one may even dominate the other. To deny this is to deny that a man can embody patience, empathy, or gentleness, just as it is to deny that a woman can embody decisiveness, strength, or assertiveness.

For this reason, the conclusion that “women must be empowered” misses the deeper lesson. It overlooks the Tao entirely. It offers an easy answer, one that demands little reflection and fits comfortably within a culture accustomed to quick solutions and moral simplifications. Such conclusions are readily applauded because they allow us to feel that the problem has been addressed without requiring us to examine the underlying imbalance.

What should be restored is not the power of one sex over another, but the forgotten virtues themselves. The pathways leading to positions of authority should cultivate balance, so that those who seek power do so from a place of inner integration. Leaders should know their true north, act with clarity, and carry out their responsibilities with coherence and integrity.

This, dear teacher, is where our attention should remain. We should not move on too quickly, because this is the essential point. We study in order to become. Learning is not complete when a concept is understood intellectually; it is complete only when that understanding becomes embodied in daily life.

It is one thing to speak about the Tao. It is another to teach it. And it is something else entirely to live by it.