The Man Who Embraces the Feminine: Shiva, Krishna and the Death of Toxic Masculinity
Shiva and Krishna are the absolute masculine—they are the perfect male. But at the same time, both had no qualms about embracing the feminine. The Complete Man - Poorna Purusha is created by embracing the feminine. They did not have the insecurity of the modern man who today celebrates toxic masculinity, seeing the feminine as weak or below him. Shiva and Krishna never deny the feminine within the masculine. They are not threatened by the feminine. Their divinity finds a whole new meaning through the femininity they embrace.
We all know how Shiva is Ardhanarishwara, half man and half woman. Krishna has no problem wearing women’s clothes; in fact, he uses the opportunity to dance and celebrate.
Only a true man who has no doubt about his masculinity can embrace femininity. This is not related to strength or power, etc. It is related to oneness—an absolute state of egolessness. Seeing the feminine within oneself and embracing it is true union. Only the man who has seen the feminine within himself can respect, love, and satisfy the female. That man has become male and female and celebrated the union.
Modern toxic masculinity is skin-deep, based on strength and subduing. It is directly related to ego, superiority complex, power, sexuality, perversion, wealth and property. An insecure man who is threatened by other men uses this kind of negative masculinity to keep his woman under control.
So, do not take help from Hindu scriptures to spread toxic masculinity, because it has no place in Hindu teaching.
The Problem: Masculinity Built on Insecurity
Modern toxic masculinity is built on a shallow idea of
strength. It measures a man by his ability to dominate, control and suppress
anything perceived as soft, emotional or feminine. This is a masculinity born
out of insecurity, ego and the fear of being seen as weak. It treats the
feminine as inferior, something to be subdued rather than honoured. When Hindu
scriptures are invoked to justify this behaviour, it is a complete misreading
of the tradition, because nowhere in Sanatana Dharma is the feminine placed
beneath the masculine.
Shiva: The Absolute Masculine Who Is Also the Feminine
Shiva is worshipped as the ultimate ascetic, the destroyer,
the epitome of restrained power. Yet Shiva is also depicted as Ardhanarishwara,
literally the lord who is half woman. One half of the form is Shiva, the other
is Parvati. This is not a decorative concept. It represents the belief that
Purusha and Prakriti, consciousness and energy, cannot be separated. Shiva does
not see the feminine as something outside himself that he must conquer or
control. He carries it within his own body. Adi Shankaracharya's
Ardhanarishwara Stotram opens by saluting this very form, describing one side
of the body as golden like Champaka flowers and the other as fair like camphor,
one half wearing a deerskin and the other silk, united as a single divine
being. A masculinity that cannot even acknowledge the feminine within itself
has no claim to Shiva's example.
Krishna: Strength That Dances Without Shame
Krishna is another form the tradition holds as fully,
unapologetically masculine, a warrior, a statesman, a lover, a diplomat. Yet
Krishna dances the Raas Leela among the gopis without any anxiety about how it
appears. In Tamil tradition, before the warrior Aravan's sacrifice in the
Mahabharata war, Krishna takes the form of Mohini to marry him for a single
night, so that Aravan does not die unwed. A being secure in his own masculinity
does not need to reject softness, adornment or the feminine to prove his
strength. Krishna's divinity only expands through this embrace, it never
shrinks.
The Real Teaching: Oneness, Not Weakness
The point Shiva and Krishna make is not about costume or
symbolism alone. It is about egolessness. A man who has truly seen and accepted
the feminine within himself does not need to dominate the feminine outside
himself. He can respect, understand and love a woman as an equal rather than as
property. This inner union of masculine and feminine is what the tradition
calls a complete being, a Purna Purusha. Toxic masculinity, by contrast, stays
skin deep. It survives only on comparison, superiority and control, all signs
of a fragile, not a strong, identity.
Modern Day Relevance
Today, when men use religion to defend aggression, control
over women or contempt for anything gentle, they stand against the very figures
they claim to follow. Shiva and Krishna show that real strength has nothing to
fear from the feminine. Hindu teaching, at its root, asks men not to suppress
the feminine but to recognise it within themselves. That recognition, not
domination, is the true mark of masculinity in Sanatana Dharma.