The feminine isn't passive — it's receptive

All very true, but that's psychology and sociology. I've been looking at it from a philosophical viewpoint, the way the terms have always been understood in thought systems like Yin/Yang, religious/mythical systems, and in an art related sense, such as when the Romantic poets rhapsodized about how feminine they were, like an Aeolian Lyre being strummed on by the hand of Nature. There's a vast wealth of literature and art study about this. I personally was introduced to it in a massive book by Camille Paglia called Sexual Persona, where the masculine and the feminine were the main focus and she examined them in some of the great works of art history.

I also love psychology, but it's a very different subject and really doesn't overlap much.

Here's a quote:

“If sexual physiology provides the pattern for our experience of the world, what is woman's basic metaphor? It is mystery, the hidden. Karen Horney speaks of a girl's inability to see her genitals and a boy's ability to see his as the source of "the greater subjectivity of women as compared with the greater objectivity of men." To rephrase this with my different emphasis: men's delusional certitude that objectivity is possible is based on the visibility of their genitals. Second, this certitude is a defensive swerve from the anxiety-inducing invisibility of the womb. Women tend to be more realistic and less obsessional because of their toleration for ambiguity which they learn from their inability to learn about their own bodies. Women accept limited knowledge as their natural condition, a great human truth that a man may take a lifetime to reach.
The female body’s unbearable hiddenness applies to all aspects men’s dealings with women. What does it look like in there? Did she have an orgasm? Is it really my child? Who was my real father? Mystery surrounds women’s sexuality. This mystery is the main reason for the imprisonment man has imposed on women. Only by confining his wife in a locked harem guarded by eunuchs could he be certain that her son was also his.”
― Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson

Psychology may be factual, but this kind of thought, engaged in by the great artists and writers and philosophers, is Human Truth. Psychology, like science in general, looks at things through a microscope and tends to see the trees but not the forest. Philosophical thought is overarching, looks at it all as a whole. It tends toward the metaphorical/intuitive, and it seeks to fit things together in ways that feel right to many of the great minds.

Her book was probably written before the brain differences were known, and yet, going all the way back to antiquity, people have always intuitively known the differences and celebrated (or sometimes lamented) them in poetry, song, and story. The science is slowly catching up.

Also, keep in mind, this is about active and passive protagonists in writing. I'm saying that perhaps passive isn't the right term, but maybe receptive is.

Do you see what I'm getting at? The problem I was trying to solve with this post is the idea of a 'passive' protagonist.

It's almost never good for a protag to actually be passive, it means you don't have much of a story (I can see some instances where it might work). But then what to call the more feminine protagonist, or the period in the first half of a story where a protag hasn't got going yet and hasn't really become active—is still in reactive mode?

Reactive is K M Weiland's term, and it's an excellent one. It comes from the third article I linked to in that Active/Passive Protag post. But in thinking about those times when I'm not so actively pursuing something, I would also say I'm being receptive. A much better term for it than passive. I think either works—reactive or receptive.

Here's one of the best things I've ever seen about the book Sexual Personae.

This book was one of the first things I ran across in the early 90's when I became interested in higher learning, and she propelled me headlong into Art Philosophy.

"I guess I just see the problem of passive protagonists completely differently."

I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. Or wait—is that what you were posting about above? I was confused by it, I couldn't see how it fits this discussion. Can you explain it? I don't think the masculine can be defined as emotionless, or the feminine as sad. Those are entirely too confining and partial.

And yes, I study psychology, philosophy, mythology, comparative religions, and art history just as Freud and Jung did, and Nietzsche and Paglia and Jordan Peterson et al, and I assimilate them all together into a comprehensive gestalt (or at least I try to). That in fact is the very stuff I'm always spewing here on my blog and on the board

When I'm in masculine mode I wouldn't say I'm emotionless. I can experience a full range of them in fact. What characterizes it for me is goal-oriented activity, forward drive, and decisiveness. And in feminine mode I'm not always sad. I'd say I'm not concerned with forward drive or goal-setting, but I'm content to just be—to drift on life's currents and to contemplate. Maybe to roll with life's punches rather than feeling compelled to punch back.

If we're going to apply this to story I'd say activity, decisiveness and forward drive also characterise the classical protagonist of the Narrative form, in genre fiction for instance. And of course emotion is vitally important in writing. A good story is generally a roller-coaster of emotion. I can't see what problem an emotionless protagonist would solve.

When it comes to the passive protagonist (so-called) we need to separate this into the 3 categories:

• There's the common mistake made by new writers—a protagonist in genre fiction who fails to make decisions or take action that advances the story.
• The protagonist in literary fiction, which tends to be a lot less action-oriented and more interior. I'm not very well-versed in literary fiction and don't feel qualified to make pronouncements about it, but I don't think the protagonists of it tend to be sad or should be.
• Weiland's reactive protagonist. This is a stage in a genre story that comes after the inciting incident and the first plot point, when the protag is knocked off his or her feet, incapable of making decisions or taking action. It can take some time before they get their bearings and are ready to become active. Weiland has solved this one by stating the protag shouldn't be passive but reactive. That works for me.

So I'm having a hard time understanding what it is you're suggesting.

I think you came into this lacking context. If you'd see my earlier posts on the subject you'd have a clearer idea of where this post was coming from. Let me see if these links will work:

• So Narrative Form is the Masculine way...
• So Narrative Form is the Masculine way pt. 2

That's where it all began.

Thank you for explaining, I have a much better understanding of where you're coming from now. Also this conversation has made me think a little deeper into the subject and to realize a few things, because I separated the 3 different kinds of protagonists a couple of comments back.

But I see we're going to have to disagree on some issues (and that's OK—there's room for all kinds of different viewpoints), because I see we have different worldviews.

I'll make a new post about my thoughts on the 3 different kinds of protagonists (I don't want that info buried so deep in a comment section), but I'll elaborate on the worldviews thing here. But first I want to make it clear I understand exactly where you're coming from. Because we subscribe to different worldviews doesn't mean we have to argue, as long as we keep in mind that it's a difference of worldview that separates us.

This should open the Look Inside for the book I mentioned earlier—Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae. Skip down a little to Chapter 1—Sex and Violence, or Nature and Art. If you just read maybe 20 or 30 paragraphs you should get a good feel for the worldview she subscribes to (and that I do as well). If you read at least until the sample reaches 11% it should be enough.

The social sciences are built on the ideas of Rousseau—that by nature mankind is essentially good, and that all evil in us is the result of social institutions. But Paglia goes the other way. So do Jung and Freud, and so do I—we believe that Nature is red in tooth and claw, that people are not born good and pure and then corrupted by social institutions, but that it's in fact the other way around. Freud showed us that children are little barbarians, who see nothing wrong with hitting another child over the head and taking a toy from them just because he (or she) wants it. In fact it's social conditioning that's needed in order for them to grow out of this natural barbarism. They must be gradually taught right from wrong. People who reach adulthood and are violent criminals (still barbaric) lack proper socialization, it isn't the other way around. It isn't that we're basically all good by birth, but that we're selfish and destructuve by birth and must learn to be decent—to treat others as we want to be treated ourselves. Jesus had to arrive and teach us this (and before him we needed ten commandments for it) because by nature people will take what they want by force unless they're taught otherwise.

In other words Paglia is saying the social sciences have it backwards—that what they call social conditioning is actually biological nature. And of course our ideas about gender stem from these worldviews as well. What the social scientists see as mere social conditioning (gender roles) she sees as hardwired by biological nature.

I don't expect to convince you of this. People are pretty deeply set in these beliefs. But I hope we can resist the temptation to argue about it. I post this information only to clarify that there are two very different (in fact opposite) worldviews on this subject, and that we're on opposite sides of the issue. With that understood, I hope we can remain on good terms and not engange in arguments over such deep-seated issues that neither of us is going to change our opinion on. In other words, I hope we can take what I call the Philosophical outlook on this—rise up above petty squabling and see that there are 2 different viewpoints here, and that we're on opposite sides of the issue. And I hope we can keep that in mind and not let it make us enemies.