The Gemini Woman
If you think all women should be sweet, emotional creatures without
a great deal of intelligence, whose true role in life is to bear
children and devote themselves to their mates, you shouldn't be
reading this book in the first place. And you particularly
shouldn't be reading about the airy signs, since women born under
this element are even less likely than anybody else to want to
fulfill that lovely traditional image. Air sign women think; and
the Gemini woman, in common with her Aquarian and Libran cousins,
can generally out-think most anybody you know. Her thinking might
not always be either scientific or consistent, but she's a person
of ideas, who needs mental stimulation and interesting people in
her life. It's not that the Gemini woman is incapable of being
loving, or maternal, or domestic. It's just that these things
aren't usually at the top of the list of priorities. Gemini,
whether male or female, must have air to breathe and space to
explore.
There's often a quality of sophistication about the Gemini woman.
Whether you see her in a small country village tending her home and
children, or at an art gallery opening in New York City, she'll
usually be the one who's read everything she can get her hands on
about just about every subject you can think of. She may know
something about Iranian politics, and Persian mythology, and
knitting patterns, and rare butterflies, and the breeding of
horses. One thing she's not: provincial. She needs company and
stimulation, and you can't expect her to be happy with a life of
strict routine. And she needs to be appreciated not only as a
woman, but also as an interesting person.
Many Gemini women become neurotic and terribly unhappy because they
try to adapt themselves to somebody else's - society, family,
husband - image of how they should behave, and underrate their own
versatility and restlessness.
Yes, restlessness. The Gemini woman, like the Gemini man, often
needs two jobs, or a series of hobbies, or a regular class or group
discussion, to keep her happy. Her desire to learn is one of her
strongest motivations, and needs to be developed and encouraged -
whether this means attending university, or attending evening
courses in one or two subjects which interests her, or just going
down to the local library a lot. In career terms, the Gemini woman
often makes an excellent solicitor, advertising or marketing
executive, translator, teacher, journalist, or photographer - and
the whole world of the media, films, radio, television suit her
admirably. She also needs contact with more than one person. The
Gemini woman, limited to just a husband and children to talk to,
will often vent her frustrations by becoming an intolerable gossip,
because she simply must communicate.
Problems with emotional expression are characteristic with the
Gemini woman as they are with the Gemini man. The natural Geminian
tendency to hold in emotion, to negate it, to analyse it away,
often means that the Gemini woman lives a kind of near-hysterical
extroverted life running and running away from feelings of
loneliness or unhappiness. A good case in point is Marilyn Monroe,
who perhaps might have been spared the tragic conclusion to her
life if she had been more emotionally honest with herself. Her
attraction lay as much in her sparkle as it did in her looks, for
Gemini radiates a kind of fascination whether he or she is
conventionally attractive or not.
You often see Gemini women who are terribly highly-strung and
nervous. It's a characteristic Geminian response to repressed
emotion. It's got to do with that other twin, the one we talked
about earlier. For the Gemini woman, the polarity in her nature
often consists of her feminine self and her intellect, which are
frequently at odds with each other. She'll have in equal
proportions the same needs and drives which motivate any woman, and
the Geminian intellectual drive as well. And they don't always get
on too well together, these two faces, because if you pursue the
mind with all its butterfly weavings and turnings, you can't afford
to commit yourself either to love or to maternity. It's a hard
tangle for the Gemini woman to sort out.
She's often more at home in conversations with men than with her
own sex: and unless her children are interesting themselves, and
able to keep her mind fascinated, she often finds the nonverbal
side of communication with children difficult. Many Gemini women
have great academic expectations from their children, especially if
they have not developed themselves along this line; and it's
probably a more sensible exercise for the Geminian woman to satisfy
her own love of learning and travel and excitement first before she
attempts to raise a family. Otherwise the low boredom level, and
the dislike of routine, can become pretty difficult.
No astrological sign is deficient in any basic human need or
expression. It's just that each sign suggests a bias, a propensity
to learn one way more than another. With Gemini, ruled by Mercury,
the need for knowledge and experience and stimulation is often
greater than the need for security. It's a question of trying to
allow room in one's life for all one's needs to be fulfilled. This
is why Gemini, as a sign for a woman, requires plenty of room for
personal freedom, development of ideas, and contact socially beyond
the family circle. Air signs, as we've said several times already,
need air.
The quality of delicate romanticism exists in the Gemini woman as
well as the Gemini man. It isn't a heavy or strongly emotional
romanticism; it's light, cultured, and airy. Gemini needs to be
frivolous, and love for Gemini must contain some humour and some
frivolity as well as more intense emotion. Also, it needs to be
talked about. The Gemini woman loves words as much as the Gemini
man, which means that the tacit assumption that your presence
bespeaks your love doesn't accomplish any miracles. The Gemini
woman appreciates a man who can be articulate, especially about his
feelings. And Gemini also likes a few games; things shouldn't be
brutally honest or stark or without style.
Sometimes you see a strong aesthetic sensitivity in the Gemini
woman. Taste is important to her. She's often fashion-conscious and
trend-conscious. She's rarely the old-fashioned type for whom the
sentimental memories of Victoriana suffice. More often she'll be
intensely modern in her tastes, from clothes to cars to the films
she enjoys and the books she reads. Nostalgia is a Cancerian trait,
not a Geminian one.
The Gemini woman can be a fascinating creature. She can also be an
elusive one, and a thoroughly confusing one if you attempt to type
her. She's particularly confusing if you expect her moods to be
consistent and her interests focused. But once again, remember the
butterfly. Butterflies aren't provided by nature for utilitarian
reasons such as our food supply or the wood from which we would
build houses.
Whatever nature had in mind, we enjoy butterflies for their beauty,
for their grace, for their freedom, for their brightness. To
stretch the analogy to unbearable lengths, we do derive one useful
commodity from the efforts of this kingdom of nature: silk, the
most delicate and luxurious and exotic of fabrics. Gemini is often
like silk: you can't expect to repair your car in silk, or subject
it to the brutalities of a washing machine, but treated delicately
and appreciated for its beauty, it's the most cherished material in
the world.
