Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Femininity: How To Be More Feminine

We've all heard men complaining about modern women, and how they just aren't feminine anymore... as well as the misogynistic rantings about "femi-nazis" and praise for the women of Asia and Russia and men seeking mail order brides. It seems like the fact that women have careers is what has changed them, but I don't believe this is the case. It's that femininity has been equated with weakness... which, in turn, is equated with losers. So many signs of womanhood are quashed or hidden.

Let's get one thing straight - Femininity is not about being weak!

Witness any child being born and you will see just how powerful a woman's body is; both mentally and physically. My own labor experience was 37 and a half hours long. And as excruciatingly  painful and exhausting the delivery was, my body was on it's way to healing itself after just a few hours of sleep.

On the flip side, I'm sure we've all seen the men in our lives turn into whiny babies at the first sign of the sniffles. And who do they turn to? Not to their fathers or their buddies... but to their wives, girlfriends and even mothers. Because men know the healing power of the feminine touch. And the strength of a woman's love.

I was reading a men's forum and saw several comments from guys who were lamenting the loss of the feminine - that the girls they know were becoming more and more like their guy friends.  One said, "Women are now seen as objects rather than soulmates - someone to go to bed with, rather than to love and marry."


Others chimed in and agreed that they'd like to see more women embrace their femininity, and that when a girl is ladylike, she inspires them to be gentlemen. And it made me realize that, no matter how often we hear this from men: No one knows what it means when women are told to be "more feminine." 


What it means to be a woman, or to be ladylike, or to be feminine has become a distorted message - from movies, magazines, the Girls Gone Wild culture, music videos and shows like Jersey Shore.


People think it means being super hot - being very thin with a gym body and six pack abs... looking very young, being sexually aggressive - like a Pussy Cat Doll... seducing with their "come undo my buttons" attitude.

It's also become synonymous with the surgically attained Barbie look of fish lips injections, giant breast implants and most recently vaginal reconstruction. And those few fleeting moments of perfection that disappear in the blink of an eye.

When what femininity really is is a softness... sweetness, understanding, vulnerability, nurturing, receptivity, sassiness, self-respect, innocence, morals, priorities, etc.

When men write wistfully about wanting women to be more feminine... it's become necessary for them to spell it out and specify exactly what it is modern women are lacking and so many men are longing for.



6 comments:

  1. Terrific post! I agree with everything you said.

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  2. you don't have a stumble button…I came to try to stumble this post today.

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  3. I don't even know what a stumble button is!

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  4. I stumbled it! (looks like 8 people found you so far on stumble)

    ReplyDelete