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Jarv’s rules, spring ’24

Jarvis Smith believes we can change the world by embracing feminine principles and leadership
Rear view of a happy diverse young lesbian couple having fun together in the city

This article first appeared in our International Women’s Day issue of My Green Pod Magazine, published 08 March 2024. Click here to subscribe to our digital edition and get each issue delivered straight to your inbox

Being brought up by my mum – with no biological dad and only what I now understand as toxic masculine males around me – made me the way I am today.

At the time I was scared of most adult men because I associated them with my many experiences of bullying, of both me and my mum.

These feelings took root, and as I entered the business world I found I was instinctively drawn to organisations that had been consciously founded on what I would call more feminine principles.

Feminine qualities

I believe we are born with masculine and feminine traits, and that these traits have different qualities.

I would describe masculine qualities as action-based, while feminine qualities foster sharing, feeling and inclusion.

What’s important here is that we’re not talking about men and women, but masculine and feminine – and we all all have both qualities, irrespective of what biological sex we are born with.

The first time I really noticed feminine qualities in business was when I saw five amazing women – all leaders in their field – up on stage for a panel debate.

I was stunned by the sharing and inclusivity these amazing women navigated; if those female leaders were making decisions for the whole of society, the world would be a very different place.

The issue right now seems to be that men made most of the critical decisions that define the reality and societal world view we have inherited. World leaders, business executives, investment fund managers – I could go on – are largely men who are making masculine decisions.

A change in thinking

The planet is in a mess. Overconsumption, overuse of finite resources and economic growth at all costs are all, if the science is right, driving us and many other creatures and ecosystems to extinction.

It seems a good time to invoke Albert Einstein’s thinking and accept that we need to stop making decisions from the same thinking that caused the problems.

It stands to reason that if more women were making decisions, the effect on the whole would be huge.

Finding balance

I think of our planet as Mother Earth and the Sun as Father Sun; this seems to be the case for most ancient and Indigenous ways.

It’s clear that without one we can’t have the other. The Sun provides heat and light and the Earth photosynthesises the light to create life, in what seems to be a balanced and easeful relationship.

What perhaps has happened, certainly to our immediate human and conscious understanding, is that we have simply become unbalanced and are now spiralling through a climate crisis.

But what if we unconsciously – or even spiritually – set this up exactly as it was meant to be, so we could evolve consciously through everything we are learning about the system we’ve created and what we can do to change it?

Flipping the script

Everything right now is on the table: we have all the abilities, knowledge and experience today to turn things round, but not the right feminine-principled leadership making the decisions for the whole.

Male decisions and men have created an economy that’s killing us and the planet as we know it, but women are the biggest consumers.

Women are responsible for £31.8 trillion of the world’s spending – 80% of all consumer spending, or 60% of all annual spending. This means women have a huge opportunity to turn the tables and flip the script in our current paradigm.

It’s empowering to know we can actually change things right now if we choose to change the way money is spent.

If spending could be redirected to sustainable products, services and businesses, then the male economic system would simply collapse and give our planet – and us – time to breathe.

We owe it to the future generations, don’t we?

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