Men Telling Women's Stories

I was encouraged by a recent article about more men in Hollywood speaking out against the ways women are excluded from directing roles behind the camera. Women need to be able to contribute more fully to the stories we tell; the world needs their perspective. Although women make up half the population, their wisdom and views have been kept out of the films we learn about life from.

This is not for lack of qualified women directors trying to get in. Women just don't get the same opportunity as men to share their talents and gifts. Yet, without that balance, our view of the world—and the world itself—becomes warped and out of balance. We can see the effects of that energetic imbalance in so much of what is happening on this planet today. It affects absolutely everything!

Bringing women’s voices and the feminine energy in equal partnership with the masculine is a key element in the healing of the planet and humanity. It's a shift that is deeply vital for both men and women. It’s time we realize that these energies are meant to be complementary rather than opposing. Finally, embodying the yin and yang balance within ourselves and the world would be personally and globally healing.

Just as the traditional yin-yang symbol contains a piece of its opposite, human qualities are never absolute; each gender inherently carries aspects of the other. In fact, healthy brains are more of a meshwork of these perceived energies. Suppressing any part of our nature causes profound personal confusion and damage, just as diminishing anything considered feminine in society has fueled many of today's global crises, including politics, economics, etc. By working together in genuine camaraderie and ensuring everyone, regardless of race, religion, or gender, is able to tell their stories and contribute the gifts they came in with, we can foster true understanding and collective healing.

I remember reading a blog by a man who said he was tired of women expecting men to be tough and show no sensitivity. He described how men aren't allowed to express their emotions or vulnerability without being ridiculed and spoke about the burden of feeling he had to be the hero at all times. That's a pressure we women perhaps don't think about that men have. I explained to him, though, that it's not so much women imposing this on men; it is the suppression of feminine energy on this planet creating that dichotomy. The world has diminished in value what we feminize. This is slowly changing. Even tough men aren't embarrassed to cry anymore. There is still a long way to go when it comes to raising the feminine and healing the imbalance.

There's tremendous power in story, yet less than 4%-8% of directors are women. Think about this: nearly all the films we see as a reflection of life have been and still are being directed and told by men only! It is painful not to tell our stories and lend that perspective to the world. Even the chick flicks and “women’s stories”, our motherhood stories, our stories of our trials and tribulations as women, are from the male perspective on how we feel and how we should react, because they are the ones directing them.

If the shoe were on the other foot and about 95% of all films…including the male camaraderie movies, war films, stories on what it means to be a man, fatherhood, all action films, ALL…ALL films, were directed and created by women; men would be yelling, “What a warped worldview! That’s not the way it is for us! You haven't walked in our shoes!”…well…exactly! We must each be allowed to tell our own stories and contribute our gifts and wisdom to society.

Andrea Allen’s said it best in her blog article on Vimeo, where she states,

“Gender inequality in filmmaking isn’t simply a woman’s problem: it’s everyone’s problem. When diverse voices are given equal consideration and weight, more informed artistic decisions are made, better stories are told — and it’s also the right thing to do as human beings."