The Conscious Feminine

Woodman’s signature term. The conscious feminine is not a gender but a mode of psychic functioning: the deliberate cultivation of receptivity, embodiment, and presence against a patriarchal ethos of control, specialization, and perfection. “The word ‘feminine’ has very little to do with gender, nor are women the sole custodians of femininity. Both men and women are searching for their pregnant virgin” (Woodman 1993, p. 105).

Woodman distinguishes three modes. In the old matriarchies the feminine was operative but unconscious — “there was no feminine consciousness, only unconscious mother” (Woodman 1993, p. 61). In patriarchy — a necessary evolutionary step, following erich-neumann‘s account in The Origin and Evolution of Consciousness — the feminine has been denigrated, driven out, “rejected by the patriarchy, her energy has been smoldering” (Woodman 1993, p. 82). The conscious feminine is the movement beyond both: “There has never been feminine consciousness on the planet… We are entering into conscious relationship with our mother and father complexes” (Woodman 1993, p. 61). Its practice is “conscious mothering,” the refusal of imposed form upon the child; its cultural image the black-madonna, who is “nature impregnated by spirit, accepting her own body as the chalice of the spirit” (Woodman 1993, p. 81). The conscious feminine is the capacity “to receive” — and receiving, for Woodman, “is the feminine principle incarnate” (Woodman 1993, p. 17).

Relationships

• embodied-consciousness
• neumann-great-mother
• black-madonna
• individuation
• anima

Primary sources

• woodman-conscious-femininity-interviews (Woodman 1993)
• the-pregnant-virgin (Woodman 1985)
• woodman-addiction-to-perfection (Woodman 1982)