open-ended question! tangents encouraged!
how has your perception of your gender/femininity changed over time – maybe throughout high school, or after puberty? has it become more or less important to you?
r/AskWomen
open-ended question! tangents encouraged!
Comments
When I was younger, I didn’t really think much about femininity beyond the surface other than wearing makeup, cute clothes and being liked. It sometimes felt performative, like something that I constantly have to put on, rather than something I am being proud of or embodied fully.
But now that as I’ve grown (I’m 27), I can say that I truly love being a woman. Not in the cliché way (tho that can be fun too!), but in all of its layered complexity that comes with it. I see femininity as power now. A kind that’s resilient, yet both soft and sharp.
So I’d say my perception has definitely changed and evolved a lot (and will continue to do so). I feel like I fully understood how much there is to being a woman until I become one on my own terms.
I’m 40 and don’t think it’s changed much tbh. In the sense that I pretty much never think about my gender and don’t feel a connection to it and it’s never been important to me. I don’t feel all that feminine… not even sure what that feeling would entail, if I’m honest… and don’t particularly dress femininely unless absolutely necessary. But I don’t feel or look masculine in any way either for sure. I also don’t really give any thought as to whether certain likes or dislikes, preferences, interests, traits, whatever, of mine are feminine or masculine in nature. It’s all just really kind of a… non-thing to me.
As a teen I struggled massively coping with body changes at puberty (I have trouble coping with change in general) and it was rather overwhelming and horrifying, largely from a sensory standpoint, and those changes definitely contributed to the development of my eating disorder because I was so uncomfortable in my own skin. But other than that particular experience and several other health/body-related ones over the years having to do with my physical sex in a very direct way, even then I didn’t have an internal sense of gender. I don’t feel like I’m supposed to be a different gender, I just don’t feel any way at all I suppose. I feel like a human being… if that sometimes, lol.
No idea how common that is. 🤷🏼♀️
Interesting question.
Pre-puberty – I was a tom boy and didn’t want people to know that I secretly liked dolls. I refused to wear dresses or anything else that was “girly”. I was gangly and awkward and was constantly told I wasn’t graceful or girly so I would pretend I hated those things so that people didn’t know how much that hurt. Secretly I would pretend I was a Princess or a ballerina. To the outside world I liked sports and mud and the like.
Puberty – I developed early, earlier than most of my peers. My mum wasn’t involved so I didn’t really have a positive female role model. I was mocked like crazy for having boobs and getting my period. I’m a big girl, tall and broad. So I definitely wasn’t what I saw around me as pretty so I really struggled a lot with what it was to be femine. Again I tried to hide my curves and hide under the radar, I never once felt feminine or pretty. I had a lot of anger and resentment towards feminity and the girls who did it so easily. Who’s hair did things and clothes look good and knew how to be pretty with such ease.
Teenage years – I went full “I’m not like the other girls” you know like most girls do. A little goth, a little emo a little alt anything I felt wasn’t traditionally feminine. I grew into my figure a bit more. My dad remarried and my step mum was (is) an amazing woman who really showed me that feminity wasn’t just about looking good for men it was about feeling good about yourself. She helped me with hair and makeup and I found those things could make me feel good as well.
After highschool I really began to shift my view on feminity from something controlling and conformist to a healthy expression of being a woman. It’s ok to like pink frills, pretty dresses and flowers, do up your hair and put on some makeup. It can also be an expression of feminity to wear a tracksuit or ride a motorbike.
Hope that makes sense it’s a bit rambly.
I learned early on that femininity is very cultural: we emigrated and suddenly I was facing a different set of expectations. I did struggle a lot with these new expectations, especially with the ‘weak femininity’. Just because I wear make up, doesn’t make me worse at math (true story), or less capable of fixing my own bike.
In the end: women are strong. There is not one type of (problematic) femininity, There are many types, and that’s fine. I feel like we’re lost a lot of what we knew about what it means to be female in the ages of male dominance. I feel that there’s less space for a diversity in femininity in today’s inclusive world: my somewhat tomboyish former self would have wondered if she was non-binary or gender fluid with today’s norms.
I suppose my point is: a warrior queen still is a queen. Not all princesses swoon and faint, some carry swords underneath those dresses and know how to handle them. And that doesn’t make them any less of a princess. We don’t all have to be warrior queens either, those who sing with the animals and take care of the dwarfs are just as valid.
And yes, there are people who definitely are something else than their biological sex, that’s fine, that’s valid, I am just worried that for some it has more to do with the social construct and cultural expectations, which I feel is unfair to them, and have nothing to do with their true identity. Stereotypical gender roles and qualities are damaging to all of us.
I’m saying this after my own struggle, and after watching my young daughter not wanting to be a girl because of the same issues I struggle with. She’s a tomboyish girl too, but very much a girl. Watching me re-embrace the ‘warrior queen’ part of me actually helped her be more comfortable in herself; as did finding girls who like the same things she does but still are girls.