ABSTRACT
The American understanding of gender is being renegotiated—the language of feminist and queer studies is becoming mainstream, the use of nonbinary pronouns is being discussed/questioned almost daily, famous authors and comedians are being challenged for transphobia. This is not only a political, cultural, and legal renegotiation, but also an unconscious and symbolic one. The American psyche is undergoing a chiropractic-style readjustment. Though painful, it is ultimately a healing process. This essay argues that it’s especially important that the depth psychology community be attentive to this cultural transformation because much of the current, troublesome rhetoric around gender essentialism is derived from Jungian archetypal theory. Analytical psychology has always been wedded to binary archetypal typologies, cisgendered images of the soul, and a generally patriarchal understanding of symbolic life. An image of masculinity—maintained and reinforced through a narrative of archetypal gender essentialism—not only buttresses cultural convention, but also shapes collective understanding of the individual self. This essay invites Jungian and archetypal thinkers to acknowledge that patriarchy is a primary infection at the foundation of the American psyche and a root cause of myriad psychological symptoms.
