Why foregoing femininity is so difficult
Why foregoing femininity is so difficult
I feel like with a lot of women who forego some trappings of femininity, the problem arises because they still remain somewhat feminine, and this ends up with them feeling essentially like failed women. Like, they still compare themselves with the feminine ideal, except not as extreme. And this results in negative self-perception where the original ideal is still a perfectly feminine woman that they're just moving further away from.
I've been thinking about why this has never been the case for me. All my life I've wanted to look masculine, so it did not feel odd to never shave, or to never wear makeup. It felt completely liberating to buy in the men's section and to cut my hair short. Because my role model was the form of presentation that's expected of men, foregoing parts of femininity felt obvious, and in fact combining the two would've felt weird. In that way I signaled that I do not in any way wish to have any feminine standards applied on me.
I think the reason why rejecting femininity feels so scary to women is because they don't feel like they have any alternative. They can either move between being invisible, or being on the lower end of the ugly-pretty scale of femininity. An alternative to that is seen as nothing, like a lack of identity. And being, say, a somewhat feminine woman who doesn't shave her legs seems to create this image of a woman who just can't do femininity right, rather than an alternative to the conventional ideal. One might say that an alternative, more realistic ideal should be popularised, but because femininity is a mode of presentation whose centuries of existence have only ever served to further ideas of female attractiveness in a patriarchal society, it doesn't feel possible to rehabilitate it.
What are your thoughts on this?
I refuse to debate two obvious facts: 1. the patriarchy exists 2. and that's a bad thing
YesYourNigel
Dec 27 2024, 4:42 PM #1I was debating posting this in the Gender Nonconformity forum, but maybe it's more appropriate here?
I feel like with a lot of women who forego some trappings of femininity, the problem arises because they still remain somewhat feminine, and this ends up with them feeling essentially like failed women. Like, they still compare themselves with the feminine ideal, except not as extreme. And this results in negative self-perception where the original ideal is still a perfectly feminine woman that they're just moving further away from.
I've been thinking about why this has never been the case for me. All my life I've wanted to look masculine, so it did not feel odd to never shave, or to never wear makeup. It felt completely liberating to buy in the men's section and to cut my hair short. Because my role model was the form of presentation that's expected of men, foregoing parts of femininity felt obvious, and in fact combining the two would've felt weird. In that way I signaled that I do not in any way wish to have any feminine standards applied on me.
I think the reason why rejecting femininity feels so scary to women is because they don't feel like they have any alternative. They can either move between being invisible, or being on the lower end of the ugly-pretty scale of femininity. An alternative to that is seen as nothing, like a lack of identity. And being, say, a somewhat feminine woman who doesn't shave her legs seems to create this image of a woman who just can't do femininity right, rather than an alternative to the conventional ideal. One might say that an alternative, more realistic ideal should be popularised, but because femininity is a mode of presentation whose centuries of existence have only ever served to further ideas of female attractiveness in a patriarchal society, it doesn't feel possible to rehabilitate it.
What are your thoughts on this?
I refuse to debate two obvious facts: 1. the patriarchy exists 2. and that's a bad thing
