Last night I got accused of something I have never been accused of in my life: I was told I am too femme (feminine).
It was pretty shocking for me. I have been told I am too masculine by a few people (mostly by insecure men) but never that I was too feminine. The comment came from a woman who had said she hated women because she couldn’t relate to anything they talked about and they seemed silly and inconsequential. At first I was a bit hurt and it made me feel insecure about whether or not I had become some sort of air headed do-do that only thought about lip gloss and hair products. I posted on Facebook and my friend Sara made me feel better. I left the comment alone for awhile and went back to writing.
Later Kathleen and I talked about it. Kathleen is incredibly insightful and has exposed herself to some of the best of the most intelligent material on the interwebz. While the rest of us are looking at funny pictures of cats and naked people, Kathleen is reading about things going on in the world. She had shown me the video below a few days ago, so we had a previous base of conversation started. Watch the video. It is brilliant but feel free to fast forward through the spoken word poem at the end. It isn’t bad, for spoken word poetry.
Kathleen went to sleep and I put it out of my mind as I wrote some more. When I finally decided to sleep I laid in my bed and thought about the comment more. I wrote a fiery blog in my head but then I fell asleep. I have been thinking about it more all day. I think I have decided what I think about it all.
I understand the comment and I understand why the woman felt that way. I used to feel the same way.
When I was younger I believed that things that were womanly or girly were weak. I used to think that if you cared about how your hair looked or if you admitted to liking makeup you were somehow inferior. I was smart and strong and therefore had to be masculine and reject my emotional and feminine side. I work to be aggressive and to be competitive. I also saw my physical self as ungraceful and unfeminine because I am not just tall but I am also broad shouldered and I am strong like ox. (Yes, I know I would be less stocky if I lost weight, thanks for pointing that out jerkface, but I would still be broad shouldered and big framed.) In my mind I decided if I wasn’t like the other girls around me then I must be masculine. My strong opinions, personality, and my disinterest in slavishly molding myself into some sort of sexy barbie made me feel even less like a proper girl. My humor even made me feel less comfortable in my girl skin. I decided that since I was funny and I had no desire to build my self esteem based on whether or not I had a boyfriend I couldn’t be a proper girl. I shot all the way in the other direction.
I developed society’s disdain for all things soft and female. Think about it. Think about the things we say when someone is being irrational or over emotional:
Don’t be such a girl
Ugh you are being such (word for female gentalia)
Don’t be so butt hurt (because you got penetrated up the rear and being penetrated makes you weak like a woman.)
Okay I will stop with that one.
As I grew older, I started slowly becoming more comfortable in my own skin. I saw these incredibly strong kick ass women around me who were still very feminine. I realized I really don’t enjoy forcing myself to be aggressive and trying to bludgeon people over the head with my superiority. I am soft but that softness has made me a lot stronger than I ever was when I was an armored tank. I love my softness because it shapes some of my very favorite things about myself.
It is my softness that allows me to empathize with people I love when they are in pain. I can take care of people much better with an open heart than trying to force myself into pure logic. Life isn’t logical and neither is pain. It is my softness that gives me so much joy in my nieces and nephews and wanting to pick them up and smother their faces in kisses. My femininity is the part of me that gives me the courage to walk through the world trying my best to be kind and open and to care about people I don’t know even though it is painful and scary and not always appreciated and sometimes it is so hard and heavy. My femininity is the part of me that will go into a bloody battle with anything or anyone that threatens the people I love.
I have found that my femininity doesn’t make me weak, it makes me far far stronger than I was when I denied it.
Plus, I am now okay with my obsession with eyeliner and getting my hair done.
2 comments
LOL thank you for the compliments, but I assure you I spend much of my time looking at nekkid people compromising their dignity. Everyone wants their dignity compromised now and then.
Kittens are also fun.
I also thought about this later and I almost posted on your FB page about it. I realized she wasn’t calling you too feminine. What she was saying is her concept of femininity is very narrow. Essentially equating girly with insubstantial. That had nothing to do with you and everything to do with her. The awesome thing is that you were accepting and graceful about her very rigid opinion and accepted her despite the fact that she didn’t return the favor. You even recognized her good qualities afterward and I thought it was very sweet of you because it was tough to be in that moment for me because I love you both. So, like I said immediately after she said that, I love you miss Selina, just the way you are.
So very insightful and so very true Selina.