What Malcolm Gladwell Taught Me About Feminine Emergence

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Malcolm Gladwell writes in his book, The Tipping Point (2000), that a tipping point is "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point." Gladwell writes that social changes spread when there is enough momentum, attention, or energy and can be started by just a few seemingly small-impact events. What does this have to do with Feminine Emergence? And first of all, what is Feminine Emergence?
 
Feminine Emergence is a process. When feminine energy grows and becomes stronger than it was before. The process relates to women’s empowerment and the sense for all of us that it’s healthy and safe to embrace feminine energy.

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The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.
​– Malcolm Gladwell​

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What is feminine energy? First of all, it’s not gender. It can be related to gender, but it doesn’t have to be. Both men and women have feminine energy. Women have it more. Feminine energy is what Eastern cultures call “Yin”. Elements of Feminine Energy include compassion, creativity, a worldview, environmental focus, creativity, embracing emotions, intuition, and win-win solutions. When we are kind, nurturing, or vulnerable, we are acting in our feminine energy. We are seeing more feminine energy in corporate cultures. As we have more women in professional and leadership roles, corporate cultures will have more feminine energy.
 
What is masculine energy? Masculine energy is what Eastern cultures call “Yang”. Masculine energy is competitive, action oriented, outwardly focused, independent, aggressive, confident, and strong. When we are analytical, systematic, objective, technical, direct, or participate in linear reasoning, we are in our masculine energy. 

​Masculine energy is a lot of fun. I enjoy it, and it has served me well in my career. It serves us well as a culture and economy also. When a culture becomes overly masculinized, as many work cultures have, we see bullying, harassment, greed, and other dysfunctions that undermine what we are looking for – which is engagement, productivity, innovation, and profitability.
 
The process of Feminine Emergence can happen for a person, a group (like a family or a work group), or a company or society. In our culture masculine energy has traditionally been more valued, so it has been exhibited more frequently. When feminine energy bubbles up, that is Feminine Emergence. This is what we’re seeing now in society and work cultures.

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Energy is shifting. Feminine Emergence is in the zeitgeist.
​– Lisa M. Liszcz, Ph.D.

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In the last three years, we have seen feminine energy being more valued and exhibited in professional organizations. We now have more women in Congress and more women CEO’s and board members of Fortune 500 companies. This is changing work cultures. For example, we see behaviors of “collaboration” and “relationship building” being valued among leaders. These are aspects of feminine energy.
 
We are experiencing what I think Gladwell would describe as a tipping point, a cultural change with no going back. In the #MeToo and #TimesUp era, work cultures are changing to be less tolerant of all forms of harassment and more inclusive of feminine styles of leadership.
 
We’ve seen other tipping points in our time. When people realized that personal computers were not a luxury but a necessary business and educational tool, that was a tipping point. Once we got on the personal computer bandwagon, momentum built. There was no going back. This will be the same. There will be no turning back.

Read more about Feminine Emergence in my Amazon.com best-selling book, FE Feminine Emergence.

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