Ethical Marketing: Masculine Energy vs Feminine Energy Approach

​Attributes of Masculine and Feminine Energies at a glance:

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Masculine Energy Rules of Engagement

Part of brain targeted:
Limbic cortex (aka ‘lizard brain’), associated with behavioural and emotional responses, especially when it comes to survival: feeding, reproduction, and fight or flight responses.

Stimulates/engages the Sympathetic Nervous System
(fight/flight/freeze)

Instinctive/Reactive

Evoking: fear, mistrust, doubt

This is the old way of marketing, based in creating scarcity, greed, manipulation and using fear to engage the lizard part of the human brain to gain control or very strong influence over the reactions and actions of consumers.

Masculine Energy Marketing is using the consumer’s, meaning our, basic human vulnerabilities against us. It is specifically and deliberately designed to grab our attention by manipulating our feelings and decision-making and playing our emotional strings.

The characteristics of this way of marketing are born from competition and domination, even shame. Those are old primal/tribal maneuvers to overcome and control, to win no matter what – to survive!

This is how and why fear, shame, and comparison are used so that the fight/flight response is engaged when the impulsive reaction is stirred to supersede logical analysis or reasoning, to limit or eliminate well thought out choosing.

​All the above are the reason why
business-ing is so serious, even intimidating. There is little, if any, room for fun or play for most people embarking on that journey.

​Feminine Energy Ways of Engagement

Part of brain involved:
Cerebral cortex: the frontal lobe, associated with higher-order functioning; including the control of voluntary behaviour, thinking, perceiving, planning, and understanding language.

Stimulates/engages the Parasympathetic Nervous System
 (relax/rest/restore)

Contemplative/Non-reactive

Evoking: trust, calm, flow

This way of marketing is steeped in a calm approach, respect, acceptance, care, generosity, kindness, and inclusiveness.

It’s characterized by co-existence, cooperation, and collaboration. It is guided by fun and play, not just as part of the creative process, but also during marketing and delivery.


Feminine Energy Marketing is an invitation into a conversation and long-term relationship building through an authentic expression and respect rather than a
"get 'em while you can" approach.

It uses high moral values to inspire a purchase versus psychological tactics to make a sale.

Those values are close in alignment with basic human rights and freedoms. It allows for the space to respect and acknowledge the consumer’s ability to choose for themselves.

This way seeks resonance, compatibility, and authentic connection where a true win/win relationship can develop and last if desired.
 
Playful creative approach is a big part of producing and developing products while in Feminine Energy. Creativity is meant to be fun.

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When a business owner places their need (or greed to sell) before the need of the client, he or she creates a lose/lose scenario. If the client is sold, using various psychological tactics, on a product that they either don’t actually need or which does not quite fit their personal preference, the client does not have an optimal experience.

The initial influence of the business owner is to get the client buy, but the resulting influence is the client's awareness or realization that they have been manipulated or that the product is not what they thought.

Either way, the client is now unhappy. Studies have shown that when someone is unhappy, they tell at least ten people about it. At least 10! Lose/lose transaction, for sure.

For most people who start a business, initially, the goal is purely to earn more money or to find a new way to sustain themselves. Nothing wrong with that. For many, owning a business, especially one that would fit under the umbrella of the healing arts, is far more than making money – or at least it can be.

It has the potential to become an opportunity. An opportunity to examine how we approach other human beings, how we approach ourselves, and to gain awareness of how we see the world and ourselves in it.

It can also become, as it has for me, a journey of healing. An expedition to discover my flawed self-definition and a belief system that needed significant overhaul! Owning a business can become a path to personal growth, self-discovery, and healing of trauma. It can become a path to Purpose.

CONCLUSION: 
  
Feminine Energy Marketing = Me/Us & the Planet
Masculine Energy Marketing = Me/My shareholders & (too often) screw the Planet

“When we change the way we do business, we change the world” – Caroline Leon.

We, as consumers, can contribute to that change by giving our money to ethical businesses. This is how change starts at home, with the individual. People are tired of being lied to, being manipulated, and extorted – it’s time for change.

We can use the Masculine approach as a catalyst for self-healing and discovery. Why? BECAUSE it has all the core components of trauma or traumatic experiences: lack, fear, survival. We can also use aspects of it and combine both, Masculine and Feminine Energy, in doing business and in other aspects of everyday life.

​We need to because we are here to coexist and to support not dominate one another. Let’s meet each other with our hearts not our egos.

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Lastly, I believe that the healing arts entrepreneurial global movement is a global healing movement. It is how we are shifting from the domination of Masculine Energy present as it is for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Feminine Energy is emerging stronger and greater every single day to balance and to soothe humanity, human relations, and the Planet as a whole. The Yin and the Yang must be in balance in order for peaceful harmony to exist as it is meant to, and in order for us to continue to exist as it is possible, still.

A quick note of thanks to Mark Walsh who is not only one of the many amazing men who embody Masculine Energy in ways that honour the Feminine but is also part of the Ethical Marketing Movement.

​We’re gonna be okay, because men like you exist and because women like me are more than willing to co-exist, co-create, and co-operate with you.

Cheers to that! 

Okay, so what do you think?