Astrology apps, crystal healing, divine feminine content, and trad wife aesthetics are everywhere online — often among the same audiences. This session tried to understand why esoteric spirituality is booming, who it serves, and where it shades into gender essentialism. We asked whether the divine feminine is a genuine reclamation of suppressed spiritual traditions, or a new container for old ideas about how women should be.
Materials
Main
- To start with, you could briefly check what people who stand behind the concept actually mean with it, e.g. here (YouTube · 10 min), or even how you inspire masculine energy in your man (YouTube · no need to watch it all, I could only do 10 minutes)
- For a more critical angle we have these videos (both really nice): femininity coaches are manipulating you (YouTube · 18 min), or also in reference to the most popular gender essentialist book of the 90s The grift of Gender Essentialism — Khadija Mbowe (YouTube · 28 min)
- To dive deeper into gender essentialism and its usefulness or not: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3290896 (article · PMC)
- Coming back to the more esoteric vibe of this topic, we can read on exclusion of queer people in these practices here (article · FSRI)
- And eventually we can link the topic as well to the current political climate here (Teen Vogue) and toxic masculinity here (paper · Taylor & Francis · 2026)
Supplementary
- In case you want some more examples, you can also check out the masculinity coaches here (Instagram). For a general analysis on femininity coaches, we recommend Shanespear's video (YouTube · 40 min)
Session structure
- What is the divine feminine?
- Origins in Carl Jung — male and female energy as psychological archetypes, now circulating widely stripped of context
- How this concept maps onto gender: feminine energy = receptive, nurturing, emotional; masculine = active, rational, dominant
- Gender essentialism — is there one correct way of being a woman?
- What is gender essentialism and why does it appeal?
- How esoteric content online often reasserts it — femininity coaching, divine feminine branding
- What does science say about gender difference? (PMC article)
- Esotericism as an alternative to institutional religion
- Why might women seek spiritual practice outside churches, mosques, temples?
- The appeal of a women-centred space — and who gets to be in that space
- Exclusion of queer people, trans people, BIPOC practitioners in many esoteric spaces
- The political connections
- Why does trad wife content overlap so often with astrology and witchcraft?
- Divine feminine on TikTok — a gateway to conservative gender politics?
- Links to the rise of toxic masculinity — the two sides of the same gender-essentialist coin
- What do we make of it?
- Can esotericism be feminist? What would that require?
- Where do you personally draw the line between spiritual practice and harmful ideology?
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