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A review by twistingsnake
Animus and Anima: Two Essays by Cary F. Baynes, Emma Jung, Hildegard Nagel
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
Emma Jung is a brilliant mind who is hindered severely by the sexism of her time. The first essay in particular, while the strongest and my personal favorite of the two, is always undercut by her misunderstanding of misogyny. It's an interesting contraction, her insistence on women being proud of their anima and their sex while also undercutting the ability of women to exist outside the home at every possible moment. There's a particularly tragic, almost laughable passage about how without the male animus there would have never been spoons invented for women to stir their soups in. Because women are dreamers, and men are doers and that's just how the spirit is fractured.
If only she knew the inventions that women would make outside her time. At the systems that held minds like herself back from expanding beyond the home and marriage. Jung despairs against the feminist movement but also exists in a strange juxtaposition of understanding the societal inequality between sexes. Importantly, she highlights that the male mind rejects its need to embrace the anima because it is female, and therefore weak. In comparison, women do no engage with the animus because they do not think they are worthy of thinking. Proof that you can understand the pieces of the puzzle, but stubboringly ignore the completed picture. I enjoy the concept of the animus/anima, though I believe it to not be a gendered experience, rather a complicated balance unique to each individual. Ultimately, she made me think! I enjoyed the first essay so much that I rushed home from work to finish the second, which was neither spectacular or intellectually stimulating. I would have rated it higher if it matched the drive of the first but, still. A worthwhile read.
If only she knew the inventions that women would make outside her time. At the systems that held minds like herself back from expanding beyond the home and marriage. Jung despairs against the feminist movement but also exists in a strange juxtaposition of understanding the societal inequality between sexes. Importantly, she highlights that the male mind rejects its need to embrace the anima because it is female, and therefore weak. In comparison, women do no engage with the animus because they do not think they are worthy of thinking. Proof that you can understand the pieces of the puzzle, but stubboringly ignore the completed picture. I enjoy the concept of the animus/anima, though I believe it to not be a gendered experience, rather a complicated balance unique to each individual. Ultimately, she made me think! I enjoyed the first essay so much that I rushed home from work to finish the second, which was neither spectacular or intellectually stimulating. I would have rated it higher if it matched the drive of the first but, still. A worthwhile read.