When it’s done and over, a man is just a man.
— John Perry Barlow
Today is Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012. Today Venus is opposite Mars. Or rather, Venus in Pisces is opposite retrograde Mars in Virgo. An opposition is an aspect that can represent a standoff or impasse. This is not always true; if you have oppositions in your chart, you may be familiar with the different ways they express themselves, until you get a handle on the energy and take control of the inner qualities represented by the aspect.
That’s another way of saying take ownership of both sides of the opposition rather than projecting one of the planets onto others and having it express itself as a standoff or power struggle. In male-female relations, that can be a challenge.
It would be less of a challenge if, for example, every marketing department in the world were not working around the clock to exploit the differences between men and women; if there were not so much pressure on both sexes to have so many expectations on the other; if there were any tolerance at all of different approaches to relationship; and if women and men could have any vestige of their traditional roles without being made wrong and wanting it all, at the same time.
Yes, if only. So in this environment, when we see an opposition between Venus and Mars, the first thing that comes to mind is that there’s some kind of antipathy in the air.