Embracing Femininity and Masculinity in Modern Culture

Hey, welcome to the show. I am Dr. Josh Axe, and I'm back with another episode. And I got so much feedback on a recent episode I did on masculinity that I wanted to do an episode as well on femininity, which we had some requests for.

So today, I'm really going to walk through, you know, what makes a woman a woman, uh, how to embrace femininity and all of the incredible and positive aspects of femininity, and what culture is doing today to to destroy the masculine and the feminine rather than celebrating, embracing, so you can become your best self.

And I think that's one of the ideas to start here is to say this: there is such beauty and strength and uniqueness in being a woman or in being a man. And if you— a lot of this is tied into identity. If you don't embrace who you were created to be, you're not going to be happy and you won't become your greatest self. I want to give you an example of this to start.

You know, I had the opportunity to work with some Olympic swimmers in the past, like Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte and some amazing swimmers. And when I look at their body types, they were built to be swimmers. I mean, you look at them and I think if they would've tried to be NBA basketball players, they might've failed. They probably couldn't have thrived in that.

Or if you had a man that was 7-foot tall and you tried to make him a ballerina, he's probably going to have a really hard time and he's not made to do that. There are studies and some evidence in psychology that show When somebody is good at something, they're happier doing it. You tend to love something that you are good at or something you were uniquely designed and created for.

And so, I think that's one of the ideas we want to embrace here. If you were created to be an empathetic and compassionate person, okay, and you have a heart for people, yet society says, no, you got to be hard and resilient and don't be in touch with your feelings, it's going to lead you to not feeling like yourself.

It's going to lead you to being confused about your identity and who you even are. And so, that's a big basis for what we're going to talk about today is that if you're not embracing your unique virtues you're good at and your unique gifts and skills and who you were created to be, you're going to be unhappy.

And here's the other thing, you're going to likely make other people unhappy and you're not going to contribute to living out the greatest purpose in your life. If you want to be your most significant self and live every single day and know, you know what? I know that I am doing what I am called to do in this world, then you need to embrace your gender.

You need to embrace your unique identity and all of the things that come along with that. And here's what's happening today in culture. By the way, this is evil. Culture is trying to make women more like men and men more like women. I think that this is very anti-Bible and very anti-Judeo-Christian faith.

I think when you hear and read the Bible, you start to see things like God said, uh, you know, you, you, you were made in my image, but everybody is unique. Every single person has a different fingerprint. Everybody— everyone's DNA is different. So everyone is a completely unique and special individual.

And God made women unique and special and men unique and special, but they are very different in many ways. And I believe we should be celebrating the The femininity in women and the masculinity in men. You know, the reality is though, and I'm gonna get into this too, uh, you might surprise you.

There are certain virtues that lean more feminine, some that are neutral, some that lean more masculine. And we're gonna get into so many things today. But here's one of the big problems that I see today. Many women, due to culture trying to force them to be more like men, have stopped being women. They've stopped being their true self.

Mm-hmm.

That's going to lead them to feelings of fulfillment and joy. Why do you think mental health issues have gone up so dramatically? So, one of the things I want to do in this episode as well is I'm sharing some philosophical thoughts, but also there is science both in the Department of Psychology and in medicine that are proving everything I'm saying.

But why have mental health disorders grown so dramatically? And you're probably aware of this, right? You see loneliness, isolation, identity issues. People are confused about who they are in this world, what their purpose is, what their roles are. It's very, very tied to some of what I'm going to uncover and share here. By the way, I'm not the only one saying this.

There are millions of people saying this, everyone from psychologists to, uh, to pastors, to world leaders, to innovators, some of the most brilliant people of our time, whether it be a, you know, men like Elon Musk and Jordan Peterson. And women, uh, we see speaking out about this, uh, constantly. One of them I'm going to quote right now, actress Evangeline Lilly.

By the way, Chelsea and I love her as an actress. She starred in Lost, and she was one of the Avengers in Ant-Man and the Wasp there. So Evangeline Lilly, here's, here's what she said in a recent interview. She said, why are we only applauding masculinity in women and villainizing it in men? Why are we only applauding femininity in men and debasing it in women? Why can't we just allow for it all?

Why do we feel the need to vilify a man, you know, wearing boots and driving a pickup truck and who's not afraid to punch someone in the face? But if they were a woman, well, then it would be the epitome of cool. Why is a man who loves makeup or cries easily or stays at home, uh, you know, tending to be domestic responsibilities. Why is that valiant?

But if a woman does the same thing, it's seen as pathetic. And for people to say, well, there's no evidence for what I had said earlier, this is an example. Somebody in Hollywood, she sees this constantly, all the time. If she tries to act more like a man, they, they, they are praising it.

When she tries to be a woman, And in touch with her feelings and motherly and nourishing, they actually call it pathetic. So, I want to go through in a nutshell what the feminine is based on Western thought and based on Eastern thought and tied into the biological, the energetic, and the spiritual. Biologically, a woman is an XX chromosome with female reproductive organs in almost all cases.

Energetically, in the East, it's seen as yin, being a nurturer, caregiver, really connected to the emotions. And then spiritually and in character, there's a form of grace, peace, kindness, empathy, compassion, and love. And there actually is a difference between feminine virtues and masculine virtues, and some of those are neutral.

Now, what virtues are, is it tends to be the positive qualities that make up our character. So imagine character and what makes up your character. Individual virtues. Now, there is something called the 7 Heavenly Virtues, which is a combination of the Greek philosopher virtues such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, what they came up with and the Stoics run with today.

And then those virtues talked about in the New Testament, in the Bible, those 7 make up the heavenly virtues. But there are many more than that. By the way, those virtues include wisdom, uh, you know, courage slash fortitude, uh, uh, justice and self-control slash temperance. And then in addition to that, faith, hope, and love.

But there are many of these positive qualities that make up both men and women. Uh, more of the feminine virtues tend to be more soft, and we're gonna get into this in a chart in a little bit based on Taoism or Taoism, which was passed on some of these ideas from Abraham.

Uh, but the feminine virtues tend to be more flexible and nourishing, such as grace and mercy, where the masculine tend to be more firm, uh, such as justice and duty, right?

And if you think about that, true, I think internally we know this, that oftentimes when you think about what makes a man, okay, if we would go back 50 years in time, we'd say, you know, a man who is rough and rugged, someone who's resilient, they, they fulfill their duty to their country, they're fighting for justice, those sort of things. And not to say women can't have some of those virtues.

They are going to, of course. I'm going to get into what this should look like, but it's more firm, right? And so the masculine in Eastern thought is very firm and rigid versus the feminine is more graceful and fluid and flexible. And so again, something like grace and mercy, you want a balance of justice and grace. If you want to create the best society.

In a very similar way of this as well would be looking at fear and love. You primarily want something like love, but also there should be a healthy fear or awe or reverence or honor of something. And so you always want to have a balance of those 2 things, of doing things out of pleasure, but also trying to avoid pain.

So the masculine virtues always involve the elements of, you think about sort of these, uh, hard and rigid things. So So, so the masculine is about structure, creating a structure, and, and the feminine is about creating sort of a, you know, is fluidity. So, the masculine could be clarity, leadership, resilience, rational thinking, or rationality.

The feminine virtues are grace, nurturing, peace, sensitivity, flexibility. And this could even get into, as we talk about, it's, it's interesting when you look at Eastern medicine such as Chinese medicine or Ayurveda, there are also Feminine versus masculine scents.

In fact, if you go to any store, uh, and you buy perfume, I'll be able to tell you likely what's in there almost every time, what, what the bases are almost every one. And, and, and, and women have certain scents that they tend to wear, and men have certain scents they tend to wear. Why is that? Why don't they just wear the same? Because they're different.

So feminine virtues are almost tied to, uh, or feminine scents are almost tied to flowers. Okay, it's very floral. Could be jasmine, it could be rose, could be even something like a lavender or a spikenard. So, so we're talking about a lot of them are going to be floral and tied to certain spices, uh, like, like a cinnamon or a cardamom.

So those tend to be a little bit more leaning feminine, but the flowers are going to be the most. By the way, it's interesting when you even look at the basis of, of, of these plants and what they are used for and their, their quality, the essence of what they actually are. Essence means there's almost a spirituality to it, what something is. What do flowers do?

Okay, flowers are seen as beautiful and they attract things. What do they attract? They attract bees. So think of the nature about when a woman is wearing a perfume, what it's doing. It's, it's create this sense of like a, like a sensual, like a, like a sensory form of like it's a beautiful smell and it's used to attract men. Okay. Just like a, just like a flower attracts bees.

It's the exact same principle in essence. By the way, I didn't come up with this. This is something that, did you know that this has been taught in, uh, Eastern and Chinese medicine and philosophy for 4,000 years? The next here are masculine scents. It tends to be trees like cedar and pine and spices like black pepper. Uh, sandalwood is another one that's sort of actually more of a neutral one.

But generally speaking, by the way, you're gonna see a lot of these scents talked about in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs, if you read Proverbs and the Song of Solomon, written by, of course, the great King Solomon. And so we do know even within nature, whether it be animals or plants or, uh, or, or, or, or other things, that there is more of a feminine and masculine nature of many things.

We know in languages. Here's another example. Now, we don't have this in English very often, But if you go and read Spanish, if you read Latin, if you read many other languages throughout history, Hebrew, there are more feminine even letters and words and more masculine words and letters.

And so I'm, by the way, I'm getting into this because I know that there are going to be some people saying, well, this is, you know, that's not true because people start to get defensive because they'll start to say, well, I Well, you know, courage is more of— leans a little bit masculine as a virtue. Well, I'm courageous because I'm a woman.

You can be, and I'm going to get into that, so don't get offended yet, please. The reason why I'm doing this episode, because it is incredibly important what I'm covering right now. If you— if the more time you spend trying to be someone you're not, the more miserable you'll be and the less meaningful your life will be. This is reality.

If you want to live the most meaningful life possible, have the biggest impact impact, biggest impact possible on now throughout eternity, you have to be who God designed you to be. And if not, you won't have impact. You'll be less— your life will be less significant because you won't be doing what you were literally created to do.

There's an author, his name is Silas, uh, Renengald, and here's what he says: when a woman demonstrates her possession of the feminine virtues, she actually appears more beautiful. By the way, can I say this? I absolutely believe this is true.

Like, I think my wife Chelsea is so beautiful physically, but there's also an element of when I see her, her kindness and gentleness with our daughter, when I see her nourishing, uh, you know, our, our newborn daughter, you know, even breastfeeding, when I see her, uh, acting with compassion for somebody who's hurting.

There's just this incredible level of a beauty and making me even more attracted to her. So one of the things he's pointing out here is beauty goes beyond the physical appearance. So he says here, a woman who shows kindness is beautiful. A woman who chooses her words carefully in order to preserve unity, harmony, and tranquility reveals a lovely spirit.

When a woman with strongly developed feminine virtues develops a few of the masculine virtues, this serves to make her more balanced and well-rounded. So women should have feminine virtues and masculine virtues, and men should have masculine virtues and feminine virtues. But to complete one another, often there should be slight leanings in either direction.

So for instance, when you look and think about what really makes a man, and Chelsea and I's relationship, You know, uh, her, her and I, for, for instance, if, if, if there's a lo— if there's a loud noise outside, okay, and we feel like somebody is breaking into the home, I'm going out there. That's the reality of our relationship. Uh, ask Chelsea right now.

By the way, my wife is so incredibly brave and courageous, but for some reason, if there's a spider in the house, she just, she just freaks out. She, she can't handle it. And if she were on this video, she would say, yes, this is true. And so, I'm going to go get the rat or the spider or the— we lived in Puerto Rico for a time.

I'm going to go get the iguana out of the pool or the snake or whatever's in there. And so, I intend to— I'm going to do that oftentimes. You know what I learned from my wife, though? How to be so gentle and kind and nurturing to our daughters. Like Chelsea is able to, and I learned from that, and I'm not as good at it as her.

Like, she can sit down there with a level of compassion and empathy that I just— it's something I can't tap as deeply into. And listen, I can be kind and compassionate, but she goes beyond what I can do. It's so amazing.

All that being said, when you're in this relationship of masculinity and femininity, Chelsea is going to lead harder and should, and it tends to be should in our relationship towards that feminine, that flexibility, that compassion, that virtue, that nourishment. And I'm going to lead a little bit more towards discipline and justice and structure within the family and those, those sort of things.

And that's the idea here. Now listen, I should be kind and compassionate and nurturing, and Chelsea should be brave and courageous and just and structured in a way to help our kids develop and help both of our lives grow and develop. But when you're looking at the roles and responsibilities of who should most— who should embody which virtues the most.

Well, it should— Chelsea should probably lean more, according to thousands of years of evidence, lean more towards the feminine virtues. I should lean more towards the masculine virtues, but we should both embody both. By the way, in Eastern thought, and by the way, going back to this, so here is how Chinese medicine came about.

Many people believe this, is that Abraham, um, sent— there's this verse in the Bible that says Abraham sent his wife Keturah east with gifts. Okay, sent them east. They're in the Middle East, so where did they go? Well, they went to India and Asia, uh, of today.

And those gifts, according to many rabbis, were the gifts of these Taoistic thought, which was Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, And even the ideas behind yin and yang. Sometimes when people hear the word yin and yang or chi, they think it's some sort of, I don't know, New Age, voodoo, something weird. It's just a different language. They explain things differently in that part of the world.

And so, I can translate exactly what it is into English. But the yin and the yang, when you look through this sign, I want to go through this. Um, you're going to see that this is very tied into the masculine and the feminine, uh, here as well. And so, and by the way, going to what we talked about earlier, the yin and yang symbol here we're looking at, I'm gonna, I'm gonna show this right now.

You see the, the yin is the dark. Okay. And you'll see this sort of dark half. It's called a fish, sort of this dark fish on top of this white fish, uh, or, or just half circle. So light half circle, dark half circle, and then a little dot on each side. What's that about? You ever wonder that? Why, why is there a little dot on each side? Well, it's just what I, I shared with you.

So you have somebody, let's say a woman who is more yin, that's connected to the moon, uh, in nature, more nurturing, right? Um, female, you see that listed here, uh, has more of a negative charge connected to the earth. Um, even seasons like the fall. And so that's very yin. Now there's a little white dot though that's yang there. What is that to say?

Well, it's to say this, is that women should be women, but there's that white dot saying, but they should also have a level of positive masculinity, like those virtues, like courage, like justice, like all of those things. And so it's to show that yes, men are men or women are women, but there should be some overlap.

And, and there are some other elements there of of this chaos and order and structure and flexibility that we're actually seeing here. And a very similar thing, again, men should be resilient and strong and courageous, but they should also be kind and nurturing and loving as well. This ancient symbol represents exactly what I'm talking about.

And here's a chart I put in a book that I wrote many years ago. Now, this was a book written on Chinese medicine, but the same philosophical idea we can embrace today. And then I'm going to get into more of what even the relationships between men and women and culture today.

For instance, if a, uh, if a woman wants to work full-time and a dad wants to stay at home as a stay-at-home dad, what does that relationship look like? And what is, what is, uh, what does history say about that? So let's look at this, the, the, the yin and the yang, right?

Uh, the, the, it's the light and the dark, the day and the night, male and female, left and right, external and internal, hot and cold, dry and damp, uh, work versus rest, fast versus slow, hard versus soft, uh, testosterone versus estrogen, cortisol versus melatonin, right? You start to see all these things here. The heaven and sky and the earth. A lot of this goes back to Genesis, right?

This is Abraham. This is Moses passing this on is that In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, man and woman. He worked and he rested. You see this here? It's the exact same pattern. And he didn't create just one thing, he created 2 things. You look at Noah's Ark, he sent 2 on there, not just one of each, 2.

These same principles, I think they're important to understand here. Now, I want to start diving into what's happened in culture today and what's happened throughout history. You know, when you look at, um, Disney, for instance, and Disney Princesses, there's been an evolution of the Disney Princesses.

Disney Princesses, when, when you talk about the ear— the, the founder Walt Disney, those Disney Princesses such as Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora from Sleeping Beauty, they were very traditional. Okay? They were— you see Snow White singing and connecting with nature and making food and doing laundry. And you see Snow White and Cinderella doing these, doing a lot of these things, right?

They're very beautiful. They're feminine. They're soft. They're loving. They're incredibly caring. They're taking care of inside of the home. Um, and then you see a shift over time in culture, and then you start to see really in the '80s, you know, late '80s and in the '90s, you start to see more of a balance where women start to take on more.

And, and most of those, you, you'll see the woman will oftentimes get rescued in some way by a man. Now, culture came along today and they say, well, women should never be rescued by men. Women, we're going to promote the virtues of independence and power in women and strength and all of those things. Okay.

Um, and, uh, and so we go to the '90s and you start to see, uh, Ariel in The Little Mermaid. By the way, I know all these because I've got a— I got, I got, you know, I got a little girl. So, um, and listen, I guess I should be proud of it, right? So anyways, so you got, you got Ariel, and my mom is a lives 5 minutes from Disney and loves Disney. So, we grew up watching a lot of Disney movies.

All right. We got Ariel from The Little Mermaid. We have, from The Lion King, we have Nala. We have Jasmine from Aladdin as another example of this. And then, we have Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Okay? This is sort of this period in the '90s. And so, what you see with those characters are there's actually a blend where Some of these women, they are maybe, you know, Jasmine, for instance.

You know, she is very feminine. She is beautiful. You can tell she is caring. She is calling out the greatness and encouragement in Aladdin. And she has this sort of wisdom in seeing actually who he truly is inside. She's in touch with her emotions and all of those things. But also, she's brave. And courageous, and she's fighting alongside Aladdin to overcome Jafar.

And, and, and you see that in most of those to where same thing in The Little Mermaid. Now there's a lot of thoughts about this. Oh, well, like her voice was taken. She gave up her voice for a man and the ideas behind that. And that's negative. I, that's not the, that, by the way, that's not the thing most people walk away with that have character that, that's, they walk away with.

Um, the idea behind sort of fighting for true love. But, um, there's that there. And then again, going to probably my favorite, and that's the story of The Lion King and Simba convicting Simba. There's a point where Simba runs off and basically says, uh, Hakuna Matata, no worries, no responsibility, no ownership. Hey, this, this, this, this land, this promised land that my father's given me.

Hey, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna live in a state of relative postmodern relativism and there is no truth. I'm finding my truth. My truth is just be happy. Hakuna Matata. And then Nala comes and finds him. And during that time she says, um, what happened to you? And she says, essentially, you are better than this. You know, remember who you are.

And, and he gets, you know, he has to go and think and he sees the spirit of his father and a few things happen. Then he realized like she convicts him to, I'm more than this. I'm better than this. And, um, and then he goes back to Pride Rock and helps save the day, fighting alongside Nala and the other, uh, female lionesses.

All this being said, when you look at the evolution of the Disney princess, it went from traditional, it went to more balanced, where, you know, you've got Beauty and she, you know, tames the Beast and all of these characters. And then you have today, and here's, here's today's Disney princesses. They're always disobeying their parents.

That's the first thing you need to know is you got to dishonor your parents, okay? Whether it's Moana or whoever it is. And then the next thing about these Disney princesses is that they don't need a man, okay? And if there is a man in their lives, first off, they don't need them no matter what. They're just not necessary. But also, they're going to be dopey and stupid.

You know, it could be the guy from Tangled. He's another dopey guy. I mean, listen, I, I could go through every single male in these Disney princess movies tend to be absolutely dopey or jerks, just low character. And, but, but the idea there is, or it could be something like Encanto, like they just, they don't need a man whatsoever.

And so it's all about the shaming and, and the negativity of men and glorifying masculine traits in women. And listen, women should be courageous and brave and fighting alongside their man and doing all those things. But you, you can start to see where this is going, these sort of imbalance of what happens over time and where we're at today. And it's very unhealthy.

I would say the '90s are where we should be landing, uh, when you look at those movies. By the way, those are the best Disney movies.

I mean, if somebody want to argue with me about if Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid and The Lion King— by the way, those, and statistically, those are, those outside of Frozen are the 4, I think, want to say for their time, highest grossing, best movie, some of the best Disney movies of all time. And it was because they got it right.

They told the story in the way we most connect, in the way we know most internally is true and the way it should be. And so, I, the thing I wanna encourage everybody to do is you gotta be aware of this. If not, you don't know what the culture's doing to you. I'm aware of this as our, as our, as our kids watch shows, you know, having conversations.

I'm not gonna have our one not watch Disney movies. We'll sit down and talk about them. The, the, but then Chelsea and I will also share. Hey, this movie doesn't quite get this right in this way, and we're still teaching our kids the reality of this. Now, I want to dive into biblical thoughts on women here, and this is from Proverbs 31:10-31.

I'm just going to hit on a few of these verses here about— the first section here is on a woman's worth. Okay. And, or the, I would say the worth of a good wife. And here's what it says. A wife of noble character, who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.

So part of this episode is about femininity. It's also about how to be a great woman. And I've got so many great women in my life. I'm just sharing what I found to be a great woman to be and also what the Bible has. By the way, you know, I've, I, you know, I had, I had an amazing mom. I have an amazing mother-in-law. I have an amazing wife. I have beautiful, awesome daughters.

I have worked with some amazing females, uh, that are, you know, that, uh, that executives. Um, I've got a sister. So anyways, I, I have a lot of women in my life, and these are things that I find attractive and very worthy. And then also I'm gonna hit— hitting on the Bible here, but just a few points here. Um, she brings him good, not harm, all the days of her, her, her life.

One of the things about a good woman is that she is looking at how can I nourish you, add value to you, make your life better? Chelsea is doing that for me continually. Now, of course, I should do the same to her. But I think when you look at men versus women, I think women are doing it in more of a, oftentimes, an internal way.

You know, Chelsea is always, you know, speaking my love language of touch and words of encouragement and in those ways. And so, I think that those are some things, but she brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.

So, if you want to be a good woman, one of the greatest things you can do is look at your man or the men in your life and say, how can I bring you— I don't want to do you harm. How can I bring you good? All the days of your life. Now I wanna jump into the second part here of, of this proverb, and it's the work a noble woman does.

So a woman of high character or virtue of who's noble, here's what she does. She gets up while it is still night, while it's still dark out. She provides food for her family and portions for her female servants. So she cares for her family and then all of those who work on, who, who, who, who work for her. She considers a field and buys it. Out of her earnings, she plants a vineyard.

She sets about her work vigorously. Her arms are strong for her tasks. She sees that her trading is profitable and her lamp does not go out at night. In her hand, she holds the distaff and grabs the spindle with her fingers, and she opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy. This is the work of a noble woman.

Now notice here, it doesn't say You know, the woman stays home, she doesn't work at all. She, you know, and she, you know, she either doesn't work or she takes care of the kids, and that's, and that's, that's it. First off, it's not that's it. That's a lot, by the way, taking care of kids. I mean, that's a, that's a full-time thing. But look at all the things it says a woman does here.

A lot, so much of it is connected to work and strength, increasing wealth of the household. So there's a lot here. In this proverb. And so I think sometimes when people become a little bit too traditional in their thought— and by the way, what's more traditional than proverbs in the Bible? So it's tradition in a way that's ideologically incorrect. Okay.

But, but, but this really gets into, you know, women, you know, working in a really incredible way and adding value to the family and adding value to others. I mean, contributing greatly. And actually, we're not even into raising kids here. Now, that's incredibly important, and there are other proverbs actually about that, but I wanted to point out and get, get into this here.

I mean, she considers a field and buys it out of her own earnings. Out of her earnings, she plants a vineyard. Then the next thing here I want to hit on is the word ezer in the Bible. So the first time you hear a woman described, it's ezer, which in Hebrew means helper. It's also been translated as beneficial adversary.

There's some, uh, there, there, there's some different— there, if you know the Hebrew language, those letters and those words are very rich and they have multiple meanings. Primarily it's meant as helper when you look in our biblical translations throughout all of history. Um, and God made women not to be subordinate but to be complementary.

And what is called out by Paul in the Bible So we're talking Genesis here. Let's jump forward to Corinthians. God says, women, submit to your husbands. He says, men, sacrifice for your wives. So submission and sacrifice. By the way, there should be a lot of mutual of both going on, okay? You should have men submitting to their wives in certain instances and women sacrificing for their husbands.

But primarily, when you look at roles and responsibilities, On the team. Women lead more submit. Men lead more sacrifice. And so men are called to literally die for their wives. Listen, all the things you wanted in life, all those things, you know, the pleasure, the golf, the water, all, all this sort of stuff.

Hey, you can do this, but the first thing you need to do, you sacrifice all of those things for your family. It's not to say you don't do them, but if you have the choice between showing up for your wife in some way where she needs you, Or going out golfing, you sacrifice golf for your wife. Okay, you sacrifice, you know, you if you have to work 50 hours a week, you do that.

You sacrifice your time. So men are called to literally sacrifice and die for their wives because those men take on such a and are called to take on such an immense responsibility. The wives are called to submit to their husbands due to them sacrificing. And literally being willing to give their lives for their family.

Now, if you're a woman and you're married to a man who is unwilling to sacrifice at all for the family, I think that makes it a lot more of a difficult conversation. And I think that that's something that, you know, that is a little bit more, uh, subjective in terms of you want to submit in a way if it can help that man grow in terms of honoring him and helping him lean into the man he can be.

I think that's a big part of marriage. If you read the best marriage books of all time, for instance, Tim Keller's The Meaning of Marriage, the idea is to not make each other happy but to make each other holy. When you think about your actions as a woman towards a man or a man towards a woman, the question should be, is this act, this thing I'm doing, will it bless my spouse?

Will it help make them better? Will it help them grow and become more godly? That's the idea there. But again, when you're on a team and it sort of push comes to shove, it's sacrifice and submission. I also wanted to point out that throughout history, and even in the Bible, we're seeing women step into, as some tradition would consider, non-traditional roles.

Deborah, who was a prophetess, a poet, and a warrior in the Bible, in the book of Judges, led 10,000 Israelites in battle. She was the— she was, she was the essential president of the time. She was running the country. She was leading the troops into battle. So we even see in the Bible a woman taking on that role. It's amazing. You see Joan of Arc.

Now, she's not in the Bible, but she's a big part of the Christian faith. And she, at 17 years old, heard from God and led, wearing armor and gear and everything, led an army into victory, into battle.

Um, in modern day, right, we see, of course, whether it's the Queen of England or a, uh, a female CEO leading a billion-dollar company, You know, recently interviewed here, Jamie Kern Lima, built a $1.2 billion company. Absolutely amazing.

And so I bring all this up to say, I think sometimes there, there's this stigma around tradition, but even within tradition, when you look back, you have women who are taking on what were traditionally most commonly more of those masculine roles and ideas. Going back to part of the point here of being a virtuous woman, I want to point out, uh, even today what we see, the value of being a mom.

Again, this, this is why I think this is really important. I think, again, I think that for some women they should take on this role of provider for the family, but I think in most cases it's going to be more rare than common. Um, when you look at the value of a stay-at-home mom, according to a recent study, By the way, this isn't a number I made up. This is a, this is a study.

They found that a stay-at-home mom, if they were getting paid a salary, on average would make $184,000 a year because the amount of, of helping teach the kids, get them ready for school, um, doing, doing household chores, doing even work inside the home, payment, all, all of the things like Chelsea, I know, like Will pay, you know, takes care of all of our finances and bills, all of those things.

But just stay-at-home mom salary would be nearly $200,000. So I think that one of the things that continues to irritate me to no end is how we will— culture will only praise women that are executives in companies. Now, do I think we should praise that? Yeah.

I think that anybody who has got to the position they've been in with virtue and character, and that's adding value to society, helping make society, making Earth a more heavenly place. I think anybody who's contributed in that way, no matter what their role, I think we should praise that. I think we should praise and reward those people and applaud what they've done.

But I think that a mom, especially that stays home with the kids and Does all of the things I talked about that $200,000 a year almost in in what a salary would be? I think we should praise that as well equally. Okay, and so I think this is an important concept that that we really need to just be be aware of.

You know, I have had so many instances where I've had the chance and a blessing to be able to mentor and. And teach and employ a lot of incredibly successful women.

You know, I had one on a podcast recently, and her and I, after the show is over, had, had part of this conversation about, um, she, she, she, she is a, she's a wellness expert, really successful, and she makes probably double what her husband would make. And so they kind of struggled and talked about, well, hey, what do we do? Because financially, she had the opportunity to make a lot more.

But she also really wanted to be a mom and stay at home. So what do we do? And by the way, and, and, and I, I think that when you have these situations, I think that you should have a conversation. I think just going all traditional is not maybe the idea. And when I say traditional, because the Bible is talking about— I just talked about women working very hard.

Um, I, I, I, I think that there's just a level of a conversation should be had between A husband and a wife. And I think the conversation is this. I think here's where it starts. What are our greatest priorities in life? I think that's where it starts. When we die at the end of our lives and into eternity, do we want to store up treasures on earth or treasures in heaven?

I think that's part of the conversation. Do we want to— what do we want our family to look like? What do we want our priorities to be? Okay. And, and there are different categories. And so this husband and wife where the woman might be in a place to where she is more successful in her career and can make more money, I think the conversation there is, okay, let's talk about our priorities. Okay.

Um, let's talk about God and what he's called us to do and uniquely gifted us to do. Okay. Well, I'm gifted at this, I'm gifted at this, and here's our current opportunities. And, and, and, and we, we, we know we wanna honor God and be strong. Um, Christians or Jews in this manner, or whatever faith you have. Okay? So faith first. The next one there is about family. Okay?

Our priority next is our family. Okay? And so what do we want our kids' lives to look like? Okay? We want to raise the best kids possible. Will more money help the situation, be able to give them more in that life, or more of my time?

Right.

And us being able to do— and it's a real serious conversation as a family. Of, uh, our, our, our, our next priority might be family. What's another priority? Health, mental health, physical health, just general health for our kids. Okay. The next one is it's about finances. Okay. Our work, our finances, our career ambitions, and then our free time.

And so you look at those priorities and I think you say, and I think this is where you really need to gain some wisdom in, I think one of the big challenges is this, and I'm gonna hit on this study in just a minute on the motherly connection during infancy. But I think if you have a husband and wife who discuss this and say, listen, I'm going to— the woman, I'm going to take on this work.

Let's call it 30 hours a week, and I'm going to work those 30 hours. But when I'm not that, I'm going to spend as much time with the kids as possible. We're going to block out time, the full weekends. And there's a very— there's a really strong intent on that.

And then the dad is maybe deciding, hey, I'm going to be a stay-at-home dad, and maybe I'm not going to do it forever, but maybe I'm going to do it here. For 5 years. Okay? When our kids are the youngest, when they need it the most, when it matters the most, I'm gonna stay at home.

And I can really respect that, having a husband and a wife have that conversation where maybe what the traditional roles are a little bit more reversed and they're in that situation. However, I think it's so important to know that there are trade-offs, and I've read a lot of studies on this and they all say pretty much the same thing. So here's a study done on motherly connection during infancy.

And here's what they found. The ages of 0 to 5 is the most important for nourishing a motherly connection. A psychoanalyst and parenting expert, Erica, uh, Komisar, found this. She said there's an epidemic level of emotionally troubled children who were, were really suffering from the absence of their mothers during a, on a daily basis.

Uh, she cited an uptick in conditions such as ADHD, early childhood aggression, social orders, and mental health disorders. And here's what she said, it's getting worse. A mother's physical and emotional presence provides babies with 2 things, protection from stress and emotional regulation, both of which are important to healthy brain development and the child's future wellbeing.

While care and concern from both mom and dad is important, From a biological perspective, it's not interchangeable. So a man can't be a woman and a woman can't be a man is what she's saying here.

The oxytocin mothers produce during bonding makes them more sensitive and empathetic nurturers, whereas the oxytocin from the fathers actually produces, even in the same circumstances, makes them more playfully stimulating and encouraging of children to be independent and explore.

Commissar says both are needed in a child's first 3 years, but children require much more of the sensitive and empathetic nurturing. Again, 0 to 3 is the most important.

Then after that, 3 to 5, and then after that, it's a little, there's a little bit more of a flexibility in children being able to go to kindergarten and preschool and needing that during the day, but needing less time of it, right? So leading, needing less of that. So I just think it's important for mothers to understand.

That if you're going to decide to work and you're gonna have a stay-at-home dad, is the child is going to be missing some of that, especially those years, as she mentioned in this study, this, uh, this expert here, between the ages of 0 and 3. Those are those, the, the most important time for that.

And then, so I think as you make decisions as a husband and wife together, and the woman makes this decision, understanding the trade-offs and knowing if you feel like you are called because financially It's what your family needs to thrive and maybe send your kids to a certain type of school and even put food on the table, right?

Whatever it is, is that, you know, this is going to be the trade-off, but then doing your best to fulfill that when you are with them the best you can, that nurturing, uh, there as well. And I've seen a lot of women do this in a really incredible way. And most of them, what I found, they work part— they're working more part-time rather than full-time.

I'm thinking about someone like Carrie Underwood, who I know and I'm friends with, Sean Johnson East. I've seen people like Lila Rose or Allie Beth Stuckey, a lot of influencers and podcasters, Be Well by Kelly, I mean, many others. And so, what they'll do is they'll work maybe half days and their husbands will maybe stay home for that day.

And by the way, I do understand there are some really hard situations and really difficult obstacles sometimes, but I do think it comes down to this. Priorities, okay? And looking at what do we truly want for our kids and knowing it is important that motherly connection really is important as well.

And while dads can nurture, it's nurturing in a different way that actually becomes more important at the ages of 5 through 18, okay? Because when you have a child that's 1 year old or 2 years old, they just need a lot of nurturing. Breastfeeding, for instance. I mean, there's a lot of nurture.

Yeah.

Uh, but as they get older, they need the other side, which is challenge and discipline, right? You're not disciplining a 1-year-old. They just need nurturing. But they start to get to be a teenager, they need more of that dad in that masculine role. And so that's, that's the reality of when you look at the psychology of it over time.

Now, I think there is a, uh, a revolutionary idea and principle that's as old as time, and it's this: do not judge. So I wanna say this as well. When I see women trying to take on more masculine roles and men taking on more, uh, feminine roles, uh, I don't judge anybody.

I think what I'm here to bring the truth of is understanding the feminine and the masculine and embracing what God uniquely designed you to be. And so if you're a woman and you have a heart to take care of your kids and you wanna stay at home and you, but you're also incredibly talented in your career. Here's what I would say. Don't let culture lead you. Let the Creator lead you.

That's what I would say. Make that decision with character and in partnership with other wise people. Make it with your spouse. Maybe you have some wise parents or in-laws or mentors or pastors or people you really respect.

Make those decisions in that way, in thinking about the long-term future and not doing things for finances alone, but doing them for faith and for family and for some of those more intangible things. So, I want to close saying this. Obviously, there's a lot of controversial ideas here, but I don't think they're that controversial. Here's the reality.

In the beginning, God created man and he created woman. Okay? And a woman is incredibly unique. A man is incredibly unique. And if you want to live your best life possible, You want to embrace what God designed you to be. If he designed you to be a woman, embrace your femininity. If he designed you to, uh, you know, be creative, embrace that creativity.

So based on your skills and your character qualities and your gender, embrace those fully. Because if you were created to be something and you're doing something that you weren't created to do or be, it'll lead to confusion, a lack of identity, a lack of purpose, unhappiness, disease. An unhealthy life that's not contributing to yourself or society. And the same goes for men.

And so the more that you can embrace who you are and who God designed you to be, the more happy you'll be and the better your life will be. I want to close with this, um, uh, this proverb that goes through the quality of a woman's character. And it says this: she is clothed with strength and dignity. And she can laugh at the days to come.

She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her. Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all. So we're seeing this beautiful proverb here And the end of the quality of a woman's character.

And so, if you truly want to embrace femininity, here's what you do, women: you embrace character, you embrace virtue, you focus on being more graceful, more beautiful, more peaceful, giving more mercy to others, being more nurturing, more loving, more kind, more compassionate, more empathetic. And you lead in that way and add value in that way. You bring that energy to the table.

And when a woman brings those virtues and a man brings those masculine virtues, it sort of— it completes something and it allows both people, and including the whole family, culture, and society, to thrive in the greatest way possible. So, again, I want to encourage you, embrace those powerful and beautiful virtues.

Hey, so I had to jump back in here because I recorded the video a couple days ago, and then over the weekend I realized, okay, I had a conversation with a woman and there was something I forgot to mention I think is really, really important. And by the way, this isn't one conversation I've had. I've had the opportunity to coach and mentor a lot of women in business and some at, uh, churches.

Chelsea and I have led growth groups, and I've had this conversation. And what I've heard from some women is they'll say, you know, I, I want my man to be more of a leader. I want them to be a spiritual leader in the house. I want them to be a leader with the growth of our family. I, I want my man to be a leader.

And, and I also sometimes hear women, especially this happens when they're single, say, where are all the good men, men at? You know, where are the men that are, uh, opening doors and paying for dinner and going out of their way to carry luggage and, and lay down their life for lives for their women?

And here's what's happened is the women have told them for many years, by the way, not all women, but the majority of women, many out there said, we don't want you to do that. We don't want you to open the door. Uh, that's, that, that's sexist. We don't want you to pay for our meals. We don't want you to lay down your coat over the puddle as you'd see in old movies.

We don't want you to give us your jacket. We don't want that. We're, you know, we're tough enough. We're strong enough. We don't need you men. And so what needs to happen now is, and this is the conversation I've had with some women that I was, I was I was, I was coaching or, or helping disciple with Chelsea is, is that you need to communicate this with them. You need to let them know.

And also, you need to be so careful not to emasculate your men and, and basically disincentivize them for being men and growing and being the leaders in the home. Because I truly believe this is what most women want. Women want a strong man. Women want a man to lead.

Women want a man to provide and provide safety and security and to challenge and discipline and help their kids grow up and to be the best way that they can be. They want a partner, uh, in that way. But I do see a lot of women today just basically constantly demeaning men.

And so what I think needs to happen if you're in that situation where— because this is the conversation I was having, she was saying, I want Chris, or I want this, this guy to lead, my husband to lead, but he's just not taking the initiative to lead. And I asked her, I said, have you told him you want him to be the leader? Have you told him that you want that? And she said, well, no.

I said, well, he's not a mind reader. And so, I think more and more women need to start coming out and saying, you know what, honey? I want you to be the leader. And I want to share a— we watch some Disney movies in our home, more of the classics, not a lot of the new ones. But there's a scene in The Lion King, I mentioned this earlier.

And, uh, there are actually several scenes in Lion King, and if, if you're a Disney fan, you'll know what I'm talking about. If not, go and watch the movie, cuz I actually think in terms of building an identity, it's the best Disney movie ever made, the original Lion King. And what happens is there's these scenes where, uh, Nala and Simba, they're wrestling and they're wrestling down a hill.

And then Nala, the, the young lioness in the film says, I pinned you. And then they wrestle again. And then she's like, I pinned you again. Okay? So she keeps beating Simba into basically wrestling him into submission.

And then later on, there's this scene when they're reunited and Timon, he's this meerkat and he's singing this song and it's more of this romantic love scene with an Elton John song. And they tumble down this hill and she has the opportunity where essentially we see she could pin him, but she doesn't. He lets him pin her in this way.

And it's more of a generally for a Disney movie, more of this erotic scene, but it is this idea that, you know what, maybe you can beat your man mentally right now. Maybe you can, uh, overpower him with your words and you can belittle him and emasculate him and do those things. So maybe you can, but should you? Is that good for you? Is it good for him? Is it good for your future kids and family?

Is it good for your relationship? And the answer is no. You know, this is where it's so important that we get back to generally doing our best to be in our traditional roles.

Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't certain instances where the woman has an opportunity to make more and she has this incredible gifting and the husband says, you know what, I do wanna stay home for a couple years and, and, and raise the kids in this way. And, and listen, that can all be fun, but generally going back to our traditional roles, because if not, it causes identity issues.

In the wife and in the husband. It causes major, major issues. And what you see here in this movie, and it's so beautiful, Nala, at the end of this song, she says she's looking at him and she's doing what a great woman should do. And, and by the way, I'm not going to sing it because I don't have the best voice, but I'm going to say the words here just because I remember them.

And I watched this video, this, uh, this movie earlier. And she says, he's holding back, he's hiding. But what I can't decide— why won't he be the king I know he is, the king I see inside? And that's the thing that so many men long for. They, they long for a woman to come, come alongside them and say, listen, you're a king. Like, men like to be challenged.

They like to be respected, and they like to be in a good way in terms of like— men don't like to be challenged in the sense of you're wrong, you messed up. You— they, they like to be challenged in a way of listen, You're capable of so much more. Hey, you might have messed up here, but listen, I'm loyal. I'm by your side. I'll fight for you. I believe in you.

That's what men more than anything want to hear from women. They want to hear those words of affirmation, that encouragement. They want to be spurred on to greatness. Men are literally wired to want to go and take on and fight dragons and, uh, you know, rescue the princess.

And if you as a woman basically tell your man, you know what, I don't need to be rescued, I don't want you to pursue me, hey, I'm going to go ahead and play that role, what happens?

Most men then will say, well, okay, I don't want to be a, you know, traditionally speaking, I don't want to be this forceful sort of, uh, overpowering male that we see in the movies that is always, uh, portrayed as being this evil character. I, I don't want to be that man. So So the men will go and they'll sort of put their heads down and pout.

The, the weak ones who maybe even have potential to be strong, and they would just kind of go bow and they will sit on the sidelines. Even some of the strong ones do this because they don't wanna listen. Men, men, they don't wanna over— constantly overpower and get in these sort of mind games with women. And so they'll just go and they'll just, they'll quit.

And so you might be in a relationship right now where your man has quit, and maybe it wasn't you, maybe it was the previous relationship or something else happened in their life long ago. But one of the greatest things you can do as a woman. Is go and call out the greatness in your man. Hey, I see a king inside you. I see a warrior inside you. Hey, I want you to lead.

And so I think for women, oftentimes they want men to be mind readers. And so I think the more that you can communicate and say, listen, I would love it if you would lead here. And when they do lead, when they do step up, go and reward them. Give them a kiss on the cheek or do, you know, put your armor— do whatever you can to affirm. They did the right thing that you want them to do.

And listen, when a male plays their role, okay, and embodies those masculine virtues, and a woman embodies her role and she embodies those feminine virtues, and they're together, there's this iron sharpens iron. This is— there's this exponential growth. There's this beautiful thing that happens. And so whatever you do as a woman, do your best to inspire your man. Uh, In any way possible.

And I want to show you a video here that I thought was great as well, um, that I want you to take a quick look. And this is from a, uh, a female, I believe she's a psychologist, and she has a really good thing to say. I want you to watch this here, what a lot of men yearn for.

I think without them realizing, I think the real thing that they find attractive in women is a woman who is incredibly nurturing. I think no matter how self-sufficient and how masculine a man is, But when a woman takes care of or predicts his needs before he says it, he can't help but melt.

So if she knows he might be hungry and there's something ready, if she knows that he might be tired, there's a coffee ready, if she knows that he's got work in the morning, he's going to be in a rush, there's a shirt ironed.

These kind of nurturing acts makes a man feel loved, and I don't think they realize it because they're so conditioned to not expect that from women anymore and see that as oppressive and see that as toxic. They're just like, oh no, I don't even expect that. But When they receive it, they act like babies, like just received and opened a present. They're like, oh, coffee for me?

Like, you know, like, you did that for me? And it's like, oh yeah. And I think they don't realize that that is actually their universal love language.

And so, you know, I think she gets that right, that men, they want to be nurtured, they want to be empowered. And listen, of course women do as well, but this is about, uh, femininity.

And we previously recorded the masculinity video, which you haven't watched that one, I really think you should watch it, uh, because I think it will also help really enlighten you on ways that, again, men and women can work together, what masculinity is, what femininity is. And I think you'll love that video as well. And I, listen, I'd love to hear your comments on this video.

Again, I wanna go back and just say this. I think that it's important to understand both men and women should be virtuous, high character. They should both submit to one another. They should both serve for one another, serve one another. They should sacrifice for one another. But when you're a team, okay, in a family unit, you need to have specific roles that people agree to play.

And I think when people play more of the traditional roles, men embracing more of the masculine while still being kind and loving, but embracing more of that justice and courage and leadership role, and women embracing more of that nurturing, loving, compassionate role, I think it creates the best family environment possible.

And I was really blessed to have a very masculine father and a very feminine mother who really came together to create just a beautiful family environment. I know Chelsea had the very same thing. And so, I've been— I was, was very blessed to be able to be in a family like that and be able to thrive as a child in that type of environment. So, again, hey, let me know in the comment section.

Your beliefs and what you think about femininity, the feminine virtues, the masculine virtues. I'd love to hear. And by the way, if you know anyone who needs to see this, which I believe the world needs to see these truths, hey, please share this video. Thanks so much for sharing and for subscribing.

If you're subscribed, you're gonna see a whole lot more, uh, videos and some great interviews of some experts that I have coming out here real soon.