Man versus woman; the great battle, raging since the beginning of time. Stories of men abusing women and women using men have a long history. In more modern times, psychology has taken closer looks at the relationship, the subconscious mechanisms that guide interaction between these two diametrically opposed beings. Yet all these stories and studies have made the error of assuming male and female are genders. They are not. Man and woman are states of mind.

Let’s think about things for a minute. Is it really so easy to say all females are more manipulative naturally than males? It is easy to say, but that doesn’t make it right. Man and woman are not terms that have one meaning: there is a biological meaning and a psychological meaning. Biologically, the difference should be rather obvious I’d hope. But psychologically, the struggle between man and woman is a central theme and conflict in human history. It also now strikes me that I should clarify: when I say the struggle between man and woman is psychological, I don’t mean some identifying as a different gender than their biological sex. It is so much more than that.

Now let us delve into what these two concepts actually are. Man as a philosophical idea is connected with power, domination, strength, aggression, oppression. Men have always been the ruling class because of these traits. Now I say that, and one might be thinking “I thought this wasn’t biological?” Well, perceptive reader, it is true that in general the masculine state of mind is associated with the male biological gender. However, the key distinction to make is that it is not exclusive to that gender. In other words, a biological male can identify with the female state of mind and vice versa. He is not identifying with female as his biological gender but as his philosophy on life.

So what is the feminine state of mind then? The feminine state of mind is characterized by sensitivity, compassion, creativity. An easy way to compare is to say the man is the warrior, the female the artist. Now it perhaps appears that I am knocking men, and it is clearly better to be a woman. This is not strictly the case; the male state of mind was (is?) crucial for the survival and propagation of the human race to become to dominant species on Earth. The male mindset is very closely tied with Darwinist ideas about survival of the fittest. However, the question now is, we as humans have achieved our dominion over the fishes of the sea and birds of the air, how necessary is the man to human life?

My belief is that the ideal course of human advancement is to move away from the baser animal instincts of the man and towards the cultured and artistic ideals of the woman. Throughout human history, man has always been oppressing woman. We even call oppressive authority “the man” now. This type of order had it’s place in the evolution of humankind and the construction of society and civilization. But the time has come to take the next step in evolution. The man looks at the pleasures of the body as the greatest thing he can achieve. For him, sex, the propagation of the species, the most fundamental of all Darwinist ideals, is the greatest pleasure and achievement. I propose that we must turn to the mind for our next stage of evolution, not the body.

The rational mind is in constant conflict with the irrational body. The mind says to eat healthy, the body asks for sweets; the mind says woo the lady, show her you care, the body says take what is rightfully yours. We must strive to leave behind these base instincts to achieve a more realized state of being. The elevation of the human consciousness is the only viable path to evolution. The ideology of the man has run its course: we are already on top. We have “won”. Yet for the man it is never enough. There is no healthy victory. In lieu of other battles he will make his fellow man his enemy. Racism, sexism, nationalism: all ideas irrevocably tied to the male state of mind, designed to create a new battle to fight. Once we were one species, united in conflict with a hostile world; now we are many tribes, fighting amongst ourselves with no prize for the victor but yet more senseless conflict.

The female does not focus on outer conflict but inner struggle. Her greatest battle is creating a work of art, or achieving a serenity in a mad mad world. The female seeks to improve herself, rather than prove she is the strongest. Similar to Buddhism or transcendentalism, the female attempts to achieve a relative state of Nirvana on Earth. This is why the woman has always been subservient to the dominant male. She knows that true strength is not mastery of another but mastery of oneself. This is a concept the man is unable to grasp. He follows his base instincts and allows them to control his life. In this way, man in fact has less power than woman. What could possibly be more powerful than the mastery of one’s own mind and body? This is the next step in human evolution. If it is not taken, we will surely destroy ourselves; if it is, we will perfect ourselves.