I have no clue which version of this post will actually be published. I’ve only written in four times now… This is going to be a hard one, but that’s exactly why I need to write it. I’ve recently started a few pretty large personal endeavors. One that wasn’t quite as voluntary is my journey of redefining my femininity. I’ve had some recent things pop up, both physically and mentally, that have prompted me to reevaluate what it means for me to be a woman, and what it means for me to be feminine. I ask for your patience as I attempt to more publicly talk about this. So, I now welcome you to one of the more vulnerable parts of my existence.
I don’t want to go into detail about what’s going on with me physically, so all I’ll say is that the way my body is currently functioning is not how a biologically female body is “supposed to”, at least according to science. There have been concerns and confusion, both of which being inexplicably scary. As I work with doctors to sort out what needs sorting, I’ve found myself in some unique thoughts. I thought I had cisgender privilege. I was born female, and I still identify as female. I thought that entailed some form of privilege (at least as much as a woman can have in our society…). Well, it turns out that I’m facing challenges in my body that don’t line up with “normal” female bodies. It started with one thing and has turned into what feels like a million. I don’t have a lot of answers right now, but with the way my body is behaving, I’m also struggling with feeling like a woman. I feel like my body hates me, which makes that hatred a two-way street. I never thought I’d feel so disconnected from my body, which up until now, had been what made me a woman. But now I have to look elsewhere and define my femininity and womanhood outside of that. It sucks, it’s painful, and I never thought I’d have to do it, but here we are.
Before I go any further, I want to make a very clear distinction. Femininity and womanhood are not synonymous. Womanhood is in relation to gender identity whereas femininity is in relation to gender expression. I know many men who have embraced their femininity without identifying as female. I likewise know many women who don’t particularly emphasize femininity and feel more comfortable expressing themselves as masculine. Both forms of expression are valid, much like their respective gender identities. It just so happens for me that I consider myself very feminine and identify as a woman. The issue here is that for over twenty-one years, I combined my gender identity with my gender expression. The two are now separating. So if you see me using femininity and womanhood interchangeably, please know that I am speaking solely about myself. My intention is not to invalidate someone who identifies or expresses themself otherwise.
Growing up, I was the biggest ‘girly girl” you’d ever meet. I wanted all things pink, I had a barbie collection, and if my nails weren’t painted, something was drastically wrong. I was a big fan of dress-up play, and played with baby dolls for longer than probably is socially acceptable. I expressed myself in very traditionally feminine ways. As I got older, and frankly as life got harder, my expression of femininity faded a lot. Instead of wearing my hair down, it was always up in a bun. I traded my dresses for baggy sweatshirts and sweatpants. I dabbled here and there in feminine expression, but I gradually cared less and less. I think this came back to bite me. Middle school sucked, I’ll never wish to do it again, but I think high school I when I realized how much society relies on gender expression. I thought it was enough for me to identify as, or as I would have put it “just be” a woman, but that’s unfortunately not how the world works. You have to look and act like a woman to be one, according to social standards. I didn’t make friends in high school, and I was relentlessly teased for a multitude of things. My old sweats and unkept hair didn’t help my situation. That period sparked a lot of issues I have with myself, and I’m still working on those very same issues.
But I’m still a woman, right? I certainly thought so. My gender expression may have been “lacking”, but I still considered myself just as much of a woman because I was born one. I could spend about a million years talking about the gender norms I faced in religion, but I’m not going there. Not today, at least. I relied on the physicality of my body to completely define my womanhood. For some, that works. For me, it has recently failed. My body has struggled with physically aligning me with other women. The parts of my body that “make me a woman” are problematic at best right now, and that has taken a big toll on me mentally. But I naturally started looking elsewhere to find my femininity and womanhood.
I had to take a break from writing after that paragraph. This is tough. I spent a good while recognizing my areas of privilege, especially as a white, cisgender person. It’s sucky when part of that changes. Despite being assigned female at birth, my body isn’t quite working as I want it to, or in alignment with how I identify. That’s wild. So how else have I encountered both my gender identity and my gender expression? It started internally, that is, mentally. The separation between body and brain that had to happen was pretty intense. I’m learning that while I still “look like a woman”, according to the social image of a woman, the physicality of a female body goes so far beyond outward appearance. I have struggled for years with my outward appearance, which is why I relied on my anatomy. Now that my anatomy is giving me crap, I have started separating the science from the emotions of being a feminine woman. Instead of trying to force bodily peace, I’m looking at the parts of my mind that embrace and exemplify the femininity I wish to display to the world.
I started with outward things I can control. I’m learning to love my curly hair. I was blessed with Irish locks that grow relatively quickly, and I’m trying to have fun with it. Oddly enough, I’m considering chopping it soon, but that’s also a part of my femininity that I’m exploring. I’ve dabbled in makeup, though I admit that relationship also isn’t wonderful, but I’ve been moving at my own pace. I’ve started wearing jewelry, which has been really interesting. Almost every piece of jewelry I wear is connected to some deeper meaning, like I’m wearing my values. I love that form of expression. I absolutely hated jewelry as a kid, it was a big sensory issue, and one I still struggle with a little bit, but embracing the meaning behind it, and what it says about me as a woman, has been fun. Lastly on the “physical” list is my wardrobe. Now, I was plenty comfortable in my knock-off Birkenstocks and band t-shirts, but I decided to embrace some forms of change. This is in part because I work an office job now, but also in part because I want to explore. I’m not one to buy myself clothing, I typically hold on to hand-me-downs for as long as humanly possible. But now I’m playing with patterns, colors, and clothing items. I’m wearing a dress right now with those same knock-off Birkenstocks, and I feel good in it. This isn’t to say every woman has to wear a dress to be a woman, but I’ve always had this “ideal style” that I wish I could wear, and today I’m doing that. I think my clothing choices say the most about my search for personal femininity. I’ve always known the kind of woman I wish I looked like, and now as I desperately try to hold on to my womanhood and feminine identity, I’m allowing myself to experiment with becoming her. For years I have denied myself the right to adapt, and for a multitude of reasons. The biggest reason being my body was never my friend. I automatically disqualified myself as a “real woman” because of that, while simultaneously solely identifying as a woman because of my anatomical sex. Confusing, I know… So in the outward sense, I’m channeling what I call a “reverse-Barbie”. I’m not trying to change my body or drop my clothing size. I’m not caking my face in pounds of makeup. I’m allowing myself to freely explore and choose what makes me feel like an outward woman. So that’s the outward stuff. Take that for what it’s worth. I don’t believe even a little bit that womanhood, or even femininity, exist solely in the outward realm, but I do believe it has been helpful for me to personally explore it.
What has actually been most beneficial in exploring my womanhood, and my femininity to an extent, is this. This space on the internet. This bottomless pit of my thoughts. You! I held the belief for a long time, thanks to society, that womanhood consisted of the quiet, sweet, and proper attitudes. It was wearing aprons and going with the flow, in a rather submissive way. Yeah, I don’t believe that any more. I have a list of “to-try” things on my phone. One of them is making homemade bread. I’d love to throw on an apron and stand in a kitchen, but think about how epic it is for strong, intellectual, and powerful women to be making that bread. The woman says more about her womanhood than the task she is completing in this scenario. What I’m coming to accept and love about myself is that I’m an intellectual person. I love learning and studying. Not only that, but I love having questions and opinions. I love that I can defend my opinions with knowledge. I think that says a lot about me as a woman. I think my writing style, from the poetic philosophies to the questionable vocabulary, pretty accurately exemplify my femininity. I can write you a song about love and drop an f-bomb like a comma. Both make me a feminine woman. Femininity can be just as synonymous with badass-ery as it is delicacy. One may be a little more traditional than the other, but I personally think tradition can coexist with modernity, if done intentionally enough. So as I’ve explored outward femininity, I’ve also explored inward femininity. My thoughts, my studies, and my words are all part of my femininity and my identity as a woman.
I’ve made reference throughout this post to what society expects of women. This post has been hard enough to write, so I’m going to make this a “part one”. I want to dive into a text I read in my sociology class, and a book I read years ago for an anthropology class, to explore this idea of gender identity and/versus expression. But I need to do so very slowly and very carefully. I have lots of unanswered questions about myself, both mentally and physically, that will take priority. I hope you’ll stick around as I try to balance my traditionally feminine side with my modernly feminine one. Thanks for sharing this space with me, I appreciate you!
Humble Chutzpah 