When I think about what it means to be a woman, I admit that I tend to think about femininity and how we express that. What does it mean to be feminine? Is it wearing pearls and nice dresses? Staying at home to care for children and tend to the house while your husband works? Is it our mannerisms—dainty waves, coy smiles, batting lashes? All of these images hark back to visions of femininity as a specific external style and dress—ones which may have been in style more in the past than today.
But given a view of femininity—and by extension, womanhood—that is associated with gender roles and adjectives that we largely reject today, it’s also easy to see how some may be tempted to throw out the entire notion of “femininity” as outdated and constricting. But what if we thought of femininity not in terms of looks or words such as sensitive, passive, weak, dependent, submissive, and helpless? What if femininity was understood as something more enduring and timeless—the simple quality of being a woman?
Femininity means more than a role or an aesthetic; it’s not simply dressing the part, so to speak. It’s an essence, something inherent. Even now, we’re crafting new meanings of femininity and reconfiguring the roles that women can play in the modern world. And yet, as women, we seek to understand what that unique distinction means for us and how to embrace what we are. To be sure, traits such as tenderness, even weakness, are not flaws. We should not be ashamed of sensitivity. Nor should we confine ourselves to outdated stereotypes of what being a woman means. Both traditional and modern-minded women can agree, there’s power and privilege in being a woman.
We can cling to clichés, or we can create a positive, empowering definition of what femininity can mean for modern women. Femininity encompasses sweetness and strength, human weakness, and will. It’s being gentle and generous, kind and brave, in our own ways. It’s passion and grace. Depth and light-heartedness. It’s confidence in who we are, the courage to be vulnerable. It’s in our capacity to love and nurture. It’s a definition that varies from woman to woman, one we’re writing and rewriting every day. These identities only scratch the multifaceted surface of what it means to be a woman, but they’re worth celebrating.
Written By Rhea Baweja
Week 49, December ‘20
