Business, especially big business, has lost much of its social and community roots. At a time when we have never been so aware of the importance of nurturing ourselves and our children, there is less and less time to do so. In the midst of the land of plenty, the plentiful never seems enough. For author Carol Frenier, the problem is rooted in the modern imbalance between the deeply masculine and the deeply feminine. In Business and the Feminine Principle , Frenier illustrates how different and how complementary these two primal energies are, and how their presence shapes us.
Masculine energy is mediated by thought, logic, analysis, choice.
It is the unchecked masculine which sees the business world as having to choose between ecology and economy, or profits and jobs. But for women, fairness is about everyone getting their needs met. All we need do is look at income disparities in Corporate America or the cavalier attitudes around downsizing or sending jobs overseas to see how disastrous it can be for business to lack this feminine perspective. Learning to use these feminine attitudes and skills, in collaboration with masculine focused consciousness, to develop new human standards for relationship in all our public institutions is, in my mind, the great challenge of our time. I want to ask the same questions of my business that I ask of my life in general.