Feminine
What does it mean to be feminine? The embodiment of being a woman-right? But there’s waaaaayyy to many variations to this. Just like everything else, it’s a spectrum, not a right or wrong.
Like, I really shouldn’t care if my daughters are seen as feminine. Really, why do I want my daughter to wear a bow on her head so people know she’s a girl? A bow represents nothing about being feminine. I can put a bow on a cactus, does that mean that cactus suddenly has feminine energy? (Bad analogy, something that will stab you to protect itself and it’s flowers while surviving in circumstances that seem dire to others actually SCREAMS feminine energy 🥴)
And then there’s the whole realm of being a feminist. I want to stay home, nurse my babies, and tend to their every need. I have long hair, big boobs and wear dresses. I cook a lot. I was a cheerleader and a sorority girl. My favorite color is pink. I take jobs as a caregiver. I hate fighting and yelling. I’m about as feminine as they come. But guess what? A woman who is the complete opposite of me (career driven, mathematical, logical, muscular) is just as feminine… it’s the soul of a woman, not a checklist. But what’s happened with feminism is saying that to be a feminist it means that women have to be masculine and it’s simply not true.
Many moons ago, our society became patriarchal. Anything associated with femininity was weaker, was less than. So, in order to get the power back, women started having to act masculine to show that women were equal to men. They abandoned what was seen as less than (being emotional, nurturing, soft ) just so they could be seen. These women are our mothers. The women of the 60s, 70s and 80s who didn’t want to be housewives with no access to education, employment, politics. A lot of them had to abandon motherhood to remind men that women were essential in places where decisions were being made (thanks RBG). In order to show men we were smart too, we had to be like them. They had to fight so we could have access to everything we deserved.
And now we’ve come full circle. We need to give the power back to the soft side of things. War isn’t brave, compromise is. Aggression isn’t strong, love is. Punishment doesn’t solve, nurturing does. We’ve seen the detriment to children who weren’t able to get the nurturing from the mothers who were forced to fight to be taken seriously. We’re the generation who grew up without our mothers-and we’re depressed and anxious because of it. And now we’ve got men in charge of entities that fix the problems (pharmaceuticals, unnecessary products, even religion) that wouldn’t occur if we got the nourishment and nurturing from our mothers to begin with.
I want to be very clear on this though-this DOES NOT mean I think working moms are bad. It doesn’t mean I think our moms didn’t love us. It doesn’t mean the woman who shops strictly in the mens department is less feminine. It doesn’t mean the lesbian with no children lacks female energy. It doesn’t mean the female CEO isn’t maternal. It means that we ALL get to CHOOSE our power, and that men don’t get to do it for us. I’ve let men determine my power for too long. I grew up with men who dominated my mother with fear and aggression and made myself small to not endure the same torture (it got to me anyway). I gave my body away so a man couldn’t take it from me (they did it anyway). I appeared smart enough to participate, but never smarter as to not upset (and I upset them anyway). I’ve let men hold my worth, but my worth lies in the feminine aspects of me.
I find my power in my fingers, when my love is flowing through them. A hair braid. Pulling a diaper tab. Typing intricate, intense, researched letters to fight for my son. My power lies in delacacies that a lot of men aren’t capable of. My fingers are dainty, feminine, and strong.
*I want to note that yes, this is coming from my perspective as a cis-hetero woman. I validate and appreciate where anyone falls on the gender spectrum, but I only feel qualified to speak on my experience *