Nonfiction

Unpacking the Myth of the Mystic Feminine

June 5, 2026

“Tap into your divine femininity.” “Align your energy with the moon.” “You’re a goddess, and your body is a temple.” Whether we’ve heard phrases like these on social media, or as slogans for wellness companies, it’s impossible to miss the archetype of the “Mystic Feminine” that seems to appear everywhere. While at first these phrases may seem harmless, or even empowering, they romanticize womanhood in a way that brings it closer to nature and mysticism, and further away from humanity. The line between animal and human has often been defended by the rationality and consciousness that only humans seem to possess. This type of spirituality, often associated with emotion, intuition, and the natural world, paints women not only as an antagonist to man, but also to humankind.

While all of us living in industrialized cities have somewhat lost touch with nature, there’s a distinct way in which almost exclusively women are encouraged to get closer to their “natural” selves. This is no coincidence. Evident from the way our modern society treats the environment and its plants and animals, humans find it far easier to justify exploitation or destruction of something when it is more disconnected from us. The “Mystic Feminine” provides an excuse for the exploitation of women’s bodies, and a feminine “Mother Earth” allows us to continue taking from our planet, which has already provided so much.

We’re familiar with the modern ways that women experience discrimination, are treated as inferior to men, whether that be in STEM, commerce, or politics. But women aren’t at risk of being seen as inhuman, are they? In fact, this has always been a danger. Historically, women have been treated somewhat like chattel, bought and sold by and to men for marriage. In Canada, women weren’t legally recognized as people until 1929. This has always been justified by depicting women as overly emotional, closer to nature, mysterious, and incomprehensible. Incapable of being in control of their own finances or lives, women become pets who need a rational man to take care of them. So long as women appear like animals, they are in a position to be dominated by men.

Take hysteria, for example. In the fifth century, hysteria was the word used to describe the theory of “the wandering womb,” which typically corresponded with epilepsy-like symptoms. Later, it became a word used for a mental disorder experienced exclusively by women, a blanket statement covering a myriad of symptoms women experienced that physicians could not explain. In fact, hysteria was often a diagnosis given when there were no underlying health conditions at all. Men would give any woman who resisted social norms or behaved in an atypical way this label to dismiss their concerns and call any thoughts—which might be considered rational and reasonable if they were had by a man or by a woman in today’s society—insane. In addition, many symptoms were seen as evidence that women were susceptible to sin and the devil’s influence because of their weak, feminine will.

Hysteria is proof that whether it is about our own illnesses or our place in the world, women are rarely considered rational when it comes to decision making. This irrationality and belief that women are governed by emotions over logic (and that this is the inferior way to make decisions) assists in painting women as unintelligent and incapable of being autonomous, justifying men’s control over women’s lives in many contexts. Men continue to make decisions about women’s bodies, such as with abortion bans in the US, despite evidence that in many contexts women are the better decision makers. For instance, neuroscientists have found that men become more likely to take risks with higher levels of cortisol (such as when they are under stress), but not women. Other psychologists have found that pregnancy may also influence decision making, as women become less impulsive as a way of coping with increased potential consequences as a result of risky behaviour and to protect a being other than themselves.

While the term “hysteria” was retired from the DSM in the 1980s, women’s health continues to be pathologized, as many conditions experienced only or differently by women are often under-researched, and thus, it becomes more simple to dismiss health concerns as simply “hormonal” and to assign treatments like birth control instead of further investigating for the root cause. This effectively paints the diagnosis as “woman,” instead of whichever specific medical or mental health condition a woman is suffering from, and consequentially, furthers her from “man” even in the medical sphere. Unfortunately, this continues to be an issue, as information on women’s health is also so restricted. In February 2025, the American National Science Foundation (NSF) leaked a list of banned and trigger words in federal grant writing under the new Trump administration. The list includes words such as “women,” “female,” “gender,” and “bias.” This means women’s bodies will remain “inexplicable forces of nature,” and without any information on how to have control over what to do with them, women will remain ruled by their biology, with only men to give them permission on what to do with it. Men, on the other hand, who have information on their health and are respected as rational, will be seen as independent from their biology, remaining in power in the social hierarchy and perpetuating this cycle.

Women are not the only group with whom we see this pattern of infantilization and control. Many movies and stories depict a similar “Mystic Native,” a serene, wise, peaceful and helpful Indigenous or Caribbean person. This archetype often shows the main character a new way of thinking, or provides a tool they need in their journey, in the form of some magical and natural talisman or spell. The underlying racism in this archetype is often misunderstood because of the romanticization of the character. However, as with women, depicting Indigenous characters as pure goodness and with earthly innocence reduces them to something less than a full autonomous human. White men in media have the privilege of being depicted as complex, well-rounded characters, capable of both evil and good. Indigenous characters rarely get this privilege, and with media being such a powerful tool in upholding colonial culture, this ingrains the idea that Indigenous people would not be capable of self-governance, and therefore should not be granted sovereignty nor allowed to make decisions about their own lives on their own. From the very beginnings of colonialism, when settlers justified taking land from Indigenous people because they were nothing more than “savages,” to abusive residential schools, church-run institutions that forcibly removed Indigenous children from their families in an attempt to assimilate them, Indigenous people have always been perceived as needing a white man to come and fix their societies. To this day this attitude permits the governments in Canada and the US to continue to make decisions about the environment, its water, its trees, and its oil with minimal input by the original caretakers of the land.

The connection between sovereignty, rationality, and femininity can even be extended to the Earth itself. Or, herself. It’s not uncommon to see posters at an environmental rally reading something along the lines of “protect your mother.” While almost always intended positively, referring to the Earth as “Mother Nature” might just end up doing more harm than good. Men see women as having many of their own positive, feminine traits, but not the more male-aligned qualities that are needed for decision making and autonomy. Women are admired for their beauty and their gentleness, but this does not mean they are permitted equality. Similarly, Mother Nature is regarded for her beauty and her generosity, but this does not mean the Earth is respected or cooperated with in any way. She is protected in the sense that she cannot take care of herself, but she is not allowed the space and the resources to defend herself in her own way. Not an equal, never an equal, because that would mean that she owes us nothing and everything we cut down and extract is in fact exploitation.

Historical attitudes denying rationality to anyone other than a white man, as well as modern, more palatable stereotypes of femininity highlight the interconnectedness of varying forms of exploitation. Any time there is a power grab, there must always be a story invented to justify it, and in many cases this is the story of irrationality. Disguised as beauty, the mystic archetype appears with women, Indigenous people, and the Earth itself as a way of shrinking the autonomous capabilities of groups of people or ecosystems. There is a fine line between being taken care of and controlled—and the myth of the Mystic Feminine allows for the blurring of that line to disguise exploitation.