Performing Femininity and Feminism

Sorry, my first reply was to dodo and my second to Buffy.

Yes, I think if you have some tiny elfin face you probably have to worry less about performing femininity but have to worry more about people being surprised when you are not actually going to act like a fantastical mythical creature, and are instead assertive, or just in a bad mood today.

Yes, I don't want to get all flippant about how we can just ignore all of this gender stuff, when you still have to go into work and act in an 'acceptable' way according to the rules of gender.

To speculate...

If we consider there to be different kinds of femininity, there are going to be difficulties in performing different ones. So younger women are more likely to be cast as object of desire, which many are very uncomfortable with. When you're older, it can be easier to take on elements of femininity, because the elements then are around 'Mummy' which has some positive connotations.

The problem then is that in certain kind of work places, any hint of mummyness is seen as a really bad, unprofessional thing, and requires a wholly different kind of femininity.

And that whole thing of putting on a suit and looking really groomed looks like a performance to me anyway, from men and women. And it is a kind of performance that doesn't really sit well with femininity. It always looks kind of awkward. I mean, who does do that well? Are there any famous women- politicians, journalists, business leaders, who do that feminine suit thing and it look good? Personally, I can only handle a suit on anyone if it involves tweed and elbow patches, or you're wearing it because someone has just died.

There is just something odd and sharp and pointy about the mix of femininity and business clothes. It evokes something strange.

Oh, I will just add, my stance prior to my sister's perspective was that as most positive human character traits - compassion, co-operation, nurturing etc are 'feminine' traits, femininity is to be aspired to for everyone, whether you are 'naturally' that way or have to work at it. And that has been my approach with my kids.

But that is generally my response to people claiming the benefits of gender fluid parenting.

There is a difference between saying it is okay for anyone to be masculine or feminine or a blend of the two, and saying we should stop labeling interests and attributes as masculine or feminine at all. I am leaning towards the latter now.

I think this is a fairly complicated question.

The first part of it would be to clarify what you mean by femininity. There are many different aspects to it: character traits, appearance, interests.

Even within that, often we are then talking about stereotypes of femininity set up and defined by men, rather than actual social differences between men and women. Can we say the culture of women, which is nuanced as any culture is, is different to the culture of men, and if so, should we call that femininity?

The next part would be when we talk about whether or not we are feminine, are we inventing a set of past events to justify who we are in the present. Because I would say that I am comfortable with femininity in myself, but then if I am more honest, I can remember hating it as a teenager, and feeling that even wearing anything feminine was inseparable in my mind from sexual harassment. I never wore a bra until I was in my mid twenties because of those feelings.

And mostly I think more and more that the very act of dividing things up into masculine and feminine, even just in your own mind, and trying to see how you relate to either of those categories is actually quite damaging. Because they actually say pretty much nothing about anyone's personality, anyone's way of relating to the world, or anything about you are as a human being.

I've changed my mind on this recently because my sister said to me recently that there are people who don't define themselves by any kind of gender, and then there are arseholes. And she's not some kind of gender politics person of any particular ideology. She has no particular axe to grind.

I think the whole masculinity/femininity thing is like an incredibly toxic and damaging version of defining yourself by the alleged character traits of your star sign.