08 Nov Femininity

In these times where roles are changing and people are playing with sexual expression, both physical and mental, it can be hard to find oneself. How do I express my gender with masculine and feminine traits?

In trying to understand what Femininety is and why it is important I looked at definitions and one found was

“ the fact or quality of having characteristics that are traditionally thought to be typical of or suitable for a woman:  Cambridge Dictionary

So what traits are thought to be typical for a woman? According to Wikipedia som are nurturance, sensitivity, sweetness, supportiveness, gentleness, warmth,  passivity, cooperativeness, expressiveness, modesty, humility, empathy, affection, tenderness and being emotional, kind, helpful, devoted, and understanding

Why is this important you say? Well I am going to be personal for a bit. When I was a teenager I wanted to have value like most people do. This value I found in my strong personality father and not my mother. She was sweet, but not strong. And as people do to learn, I tried to copy some of his traits like “determination, forceful, sure when discussing (some might say arrogant), focused” etc.

In trying to be something you are not, we often go to the opposite side. This was true for me too. A rebell showing how important it was to be different. I was punk for a while. Heavy rocker for a long period and angry.

In my 20s I studied in England, and because this was not a familiar culture I did not need to be in opposition any more to find myself. And thus the big question was obvious once more. “Who was I as a woman”. Going from only wearing black to experimenting wearing skirts and dresses. And strangely I found more of myself.

Finding your identity is what the 20s is all about and having children in my late 20s – girls – I was forced to continue the search for my womanhood because I now was a role model. Studying psychology, attending women’s groups and becoming a couple therapist was some part of my search. And piece by piece I discovered what femininity was for me.

This search was long and very meaningful. Studying gender psychology gave some answers, but still “what was the embodiment of being a woman?”. I found that something felt more natural than others. My picture here is what is downstream in the river for me and what was going against the natural direction.

One thing I learned is that due to the simple fact that as a woman you get your period in your teens, which means that you are forced to relate to your body and changing feelings as hormones make me go to bed happy and then wake up wanting to kill someone (which I have not of course). Thus the norm of having a stable emotional mood only made me feel I should have been different. Learning that changing moods is natural due to hormones gave me some peace.

So peace became a guidepost for me in my search for being a powerful woman. I have taken many descriptions of being a woman and tasted how that resonates within me. And yes, I have found many typical feminin traits as true for me. I have become less judgmental in what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a man.

Carl G. Jung talks about the individuation process as finding an inner peace balancing femininity and masculinity, consciousness and unconsciousness and more, and in this I found it to be useful viewing it as both and rather than either or. For a man, caring is as natural for him as being powerful as a woman.

It took time for the quest of being feminine and a woman for me, taking me home to myself. And  what is your unique blend of what it means being a woman or man is for you is your quest. Being in opposition to women in my teens, can be viewed as “throwing the baby out with the bath water”, but for me it was my way to come home to myself – not what my culture has taught me is right, but what is right for me.

I love being a powerful woman and value my father’s hard comments on women. Not because I listened to him, but because I got angry enough to look inside to find me.

Who did you have to be to be loved growing up?