--- slug: woodman-the-feminine-4ddef99a title: "Woodman on The Feminine" author: "Marion Woodman" work: "Conscious Femininity: Interviews With Marion Woodman" section: "" year: "1993" tradition: jungian-core themes: - the-feminine fragment: | Generally speaking, the feminine is thought of as irrational and stupid. Women will come out with a feminine statement and then say, "Oh, that was stupid to say that." It's the circuitous way the feminine moves. She moves like a snake, back and forth and around and deep and around. I am often criticized for the way I speak, because it's not orderly, it's not going toward a goal, it's not linear. I purposely do not lecture that way anymore because for me it's very boring to know exactly where I'm going. I love the pleasure of the journey. I have a plan in my head; there are three or four points I want to makebut exactly how those are going to be expressed, I don't know. I trust that something will happen. Most people are terrified of spontaneity. They don't know how to be in the now so they'll do anything to follow a preconceived plan. This is the exact opposite of the feminine, which lives in the present. lead_in: "" reflection: | Woodman is describing something the culture has already judged before she opens her mouth. The circuitous way — snake-like, back and forth, around and deep — is not disorganization. It is a different grammar of knowing, one that does not sacrifice the present moment to the predetermined destination. What she names as "boring" in the linear approach is actually a specific poverty: you can only arrive at what you already knew was there. The terror of spontaneity she notices is real and worth sitting with. It is not a personality quirk. When knowing-where-you-are-going functions as protection against the present, then the plan is a wall — and the soul behind the wall is in genuine panic about what being here, now, unscripted might disclose. Structure used that way is not rigor; it is armor worn against arrival. What Woodman trusts — that something will happen, that the three or four points will find their form in motion — is not irrationality. It is confidence in a process she has learned not to override. The pleasure of the journey she mentions is not romantic softness. It is the only evidence that the journey is actually being made, rather than rehearsed. reflection_v0_3: | The snake is the right image — not because it is sinister or seductive, as the tradition insists, but because it moves by contact with the ground at every point. No part of it is airborne, projecting ahead, pre-securing the next position. Woodman is defending this kind of motion against the implicit accusation that it lacks direction, and her defense is quiet but total: there is a plan, just not a script. The distinction matters because critics of "circuitous" thought usually assume that all intelligence aims at efficient arrival. Hillman, characteristically, would push further and say the soul never arrives — but Woodman is less interested in that ontological claim than in the felt quality of attention that linear argument forecloses. What she names as spontaneity is closer to readiness: the capacity to meet what actually emerges from a passage rather than only what you brought into it. parent_id: Woodman_1993_Conscious_Femininity_Interviews_With_Marion__par0049 source: oracle-v3-retrieve generated: 2026-04-17 regenerated: 2026-04-18 prompt_version: v2.7 status: draft --- Woodman writes: > Generally speaking, the feminine is thought of as irrational and stupid. Women will come out with a feminine statement and then say, "Oh, that was stupid to say that." It's the circuitous way the feminine moves. She moves like a snake, back and forth and around and deep and around. I am often criticized for the way I speak, because it's not orderly, it's not going toward a goal, it's not linear. I purposely do not lecture that way anymore because for me it's very boring to know exactly where I'm going. I love the pleasure of the journey. I have a plan in my head; there are three or four points I want to makebut exactly how those are going to be expressed, I don't know. I trust that something will happen. Most people are terrified of spontaneity. They don't know how to be in the now so they'll do anything to follow a preconceived plan. This is the exact opposite of the feminine, which lives in the present. — Marion Woodman Woodman is describing something the culture has already judged before she opens her mouth. The circuitous way — snake-like, back and forth, around and deep — is not disorganization. It is a different grammar of knowing, one that does not sacrifice the present moment to the predetermined destination. What she names as "boring" in the linear approach is actually a specific poverty: you can only arrive at what you already knew was there. The terror of spontaneity she notices is real and worth sitting with. It is not a personality quirk. When knowing-where-you-are-going functions as protection against the present, then the plan is a wall — and the soul behind the wall is in genuine panic about what being here, now, unscripted might disclose. Structure used that way is not rigor; it is armor worn against arrival. What Woodman trusts — that something will happen, that the three or four points will find their form in motion — is not irrationality. It is confidence in a process she has learned not to override. The pleasure of the journey she mentions is not romantic softness. It is the only evidence that the journey is actually being made, rather than rehearsed. --- Marion Woodman · *Conscious Femininity: Interviews With Marion Woodman* · 1993