Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman.

Perhaps I’m overstating my case but I feel as though the recent success of the Wonder Woman movie has been prophesied here in this humble column. For not a few years I’ve been adding my voice to the conversation regarding the redemptive sacred feminine and in Wonder Woman we have a mainstream mega-movie full of images which display the super-powers of the feminine character.

We’ve looked at the redemptive feminine in the operas of Verdi, Wagner, and Gounod along with the symphonic utterances of Mahler. We’ve looked at long neglected female composers such as Ethel Smyth and Emilie Mayer as well as the rising tide of female conductors.

While you will never catch me wearing an “I’m with her” T-shirt, due to my considering it to be the latest desperate attempt of the beta male to find a welcome home for his apologetic penis, I am an ardent believer in the balance of feminine and masculine within the individual and society at large.

Nowhere is this better expressed than classical music, and, well, Wonder Woman. Perhaps this is the path which is open to us, the path of the female who has a balance of masculine qualities, instead of the male who has balanced feminine attributes.

Are you feeling what I’m getting at here? The “wonder woman” is a more acceptable balance of Jung’s anima and animus than the sensitive guy who makes a killer quiche and shaves every third day while living in a permanent state of knit sweat pants. Of course, my disdain for this beta male only reinforces the fact that we are a long way from accomplishing an authentic version of this balancing act in our society.

The female with masculine qualities feels more natural to me, perhaps because the masculine qualities are still admired and for a woman to incorporate them feels like a step forward while a man incorporating feminine qualities is the desperate fool in the “I’m with her” T-shirt.

On the other hand it could be that the masculine-balancing woman appears more authentic because she doesn’t have the eternal-erection agenda of all men regardless of their ability to balance attributes of feminine distinction.

Am I making too much of this? No I don’t think so. Finer minds than mine have come to similar conclusions. However, the conversation has become more complex and nuanced as traditional gender roles have metamorphosed over the past several decades.

I shall end with the concluding text of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 which was drawn from Goethe’s Faust: “All that passes away is only a likeness. The inadequacy of earth here finds fulfillment. The ineffable here is accomplished. The eternal feminine leads us up.”