“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

There would have been no question of men performing so-called feminine tasks, or of women performing so-called masculine tasks, for there no leeway for that kind of individual action would have existed.

For that matter, there is far greater leeway in the behavior of animals than you understand, for you interpret animal behavior according to your own beliefs. You interpret the past history of your species in the same manner. It seems to you that the female always tended to the offspring, for example, nursing them, that she was forced to remain close to home while the male fought off enemies or hunted for food. The ranging male, therefore, appears to have been much more curious and aggressive. There was instead a different kind of situation. Children do not come in litters. The family of the caveman was a far more “democratic” group than you suppose — men and women working side by side, children learning to hunt with both parents, women stopping to nurse a child along the way, the species standing apart from others because it was not ritualized in sexual behavior.

Women were also somewhat lighter because they would bear the additional weight of a child. Even then, of course, there were variances, for many women are larger than small men. But the women could hunt as well as the men. If compassion, kindness, and gentleness were feminine characteristics only, then no male could be kind or compassionate because such feelings would not be biologically possible.

In your terms the psyche is a repository of characteristics that operate in union, composed of female and male elements. The human psyche contains such patterns that can be put together in multitudinous ways. You have categorized human abilities so that it seems that you are men or women, or women and men primarily, and persons secondarily. Your personhood exists first, however. Your individuality gives meaning to your sex, and not the other way around.