Feminine, Masculine, Female, and Male in the Integral Space

Drawing on her many years as a feminist and spiritual practitioner, Rebecca Bailin raises some inconvenient truths for the Integral community in this article. In “Feminine, Masculine, Female, and Male in the Integral Space,” she shines a light on the ways that the remarks of leaders in the Integral community, such as Ken Wilber, Andrew Cohen, and David Deida, can and have been used to conflate gender and sex (e.g., overly associating women as feminine). Bailin does a great job of modeling a reflective critical engagement with a hot and in ways controversial topic. As such, we can learn a great deal from reflecting on the relationship between casual remarks and nuanced positions on sex and gender.

In addition, by focusing on types, her article helps to redress an element that many feel has been underdeveloped in Integral Theory. Of the five main elements of the AQAL model, types is arguably the one least explored and utilized in various applications (with quadrants and lines being the most used). Bailin’s article also provides us with some important considerations of what it means to be a community of discourse.

A Note from Rebecca: This article embodies what I have always wanted to say to the Integral community. Whenever I talk about this topic, I’ve noticed a lot of heat and energy. As I wrote the article, my big concern was that we may think of “feminine” as independent from female and “masculine” independent from male, but I wasn’t sure this was true in our authentic gut.  When we use these concepts, we run the risk of perpetuating the suffering of many people who do not fit traditional gender ideals. 

I am currently working on an Integral workshop for people in their twenties.  Likely candidates would be smart, highly functional, probably green altitude twenty-somethings who may feel burnt-out and cynical about Boomer spirituality and politics. Visit my blog for more information.  Please take a look, pass on the link, and help me form this community. Many thanks!

Article Abstract: This article attempts to deepen the conversation about Integral Feminism by considering the use of the masculine/feminine typology within the integral community. The article will examine how the coupling of gender (the social construct that masculine/feminine typology references) and sex (the biological construct) evolves over the arc of development. The article will propose that types are, if not by definition, then at least by common connotation, essentialist, and can lead to an unexplored, deeply embedded and intractable bias that strongly associates gender and sex (i.e., feminine is often conflated with women and masculine with men). The article notes that with development, the hold of this particular typology—and the tight coupling of gender and sex characteristic of lower levels—seems to loosen. Looking at development may help us to unpack the ramifications of essentialism (e.g., immutability and ahistory) and to resist a typological pre/trans fallacy in which unconscious essentialism invites us to fallaciously apply first-tier gender ideals to second-tier consciousness. Finally, the article envisions a more nuanced, developmentally oriented understanding of the relationship between gendered typology and biological sex.

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