Feminine, The Weaker?

I was still a child when I noticed that powerful, "important" people like doctors, school principals, store owners, policemen, priests, heads of state, and heads of family were like me: male. In contrast, those in "less celebrated" social roles, assistants, secretaries, and the like, were unlike me: female. As the years passed, I learned words that further divided and stigmatized these differences. I learned about Feminine and Masculine. As children, we can see patterns, but ignorance blurs the big picture that normalizes narratives that treat female as lesser, and the Feminine as weaker.

Boys must learn fast; Feminine is kryptonite. A man wouldn't dare flaunt anything that might be seen as Feminine. Not in how they look, talk, or act. Not emotional, and for the love of God, boys had better have heterosexual desires and be predatory towards women. Failing these social standards has consequences: ridicule, ostracism, being exiled from social networks, or being disowned outright by friends or even family.

How did humanity come to settle on these masculine staples? I imagine that before humans held dominion over the entire animal kingdom, before we realized our bigger brain and boundless ego, our primal ancestors, who, in reality, were just another source of meat in the prehistoric food chain, developed an appreciation for specific skills. Courage and strength were idolized, as were the hunters who bravely faced deadly predators, making the tribe feel safer. Also, the smart and clever men who forged tools and weapons to encouraged humans into believing we are the apex animal. Since history credits these roles almost exclusively to males, and those roles are revered as masculine, it's men who continue to be beneficiaries of social privileges and power at the expense of Feminine.

So, is any of this fair? Likely not, but these ancient values have become so ingrained and normalized that justification is automatic. It's there when we humiliate boys with comments like, "You throw like a girl!" When we insist on making the point that boys don't cry as a warning not to be emotionally soft, like girls. Even mothers challenge their sons' manhood with suck it up, man up, or don't be a pussy! We've become so conditioned by these machismo values that even mothers of young girls are numb to how these demeaning remarks bleed out their daughters' Feminine self-esteem. Ironically, it's the behaviour that crushed their self-esteem as young girls.

There's a saying: people can't be what they don't see. It's important because in modern culture, girls and women rarely, if ever, get to see Feminine portrayed as independent or strong. In a patriarchal society, Femininity has two primary identities: the nurturing mother, caretaker, or the woman expected to cultivate beauty as her primary asset and worth in the world. None of this surprises anyone; it's a centuries-old attitude that corrupts women's identity and convinces her to blame Femininity as a prime reason why females are objectified, disrespected, kept powerless, made codependent, and overlooked as soft and weak.

Women have fought for political, economic, personal, and social equality for over a century as feminists, but what does it say when Feminine is never part of the empowerment conversation and never the idolized heroine? For women, Feminine may as well be a curse. But how many women are encouraged to see the social curse as their personal cure? 

Men schooled in the art of war are well aware of this strategy. It's convincing an opponent that their strength is a fatal weakness. It's reverse psychology. It works when a woman's healthy weight is thrown in her face and she believes she is fat. It's when her sex drive is used to make her feel the shame of a slut. It's when being forthright exposes her to being called a bitch. The fallout is women feeling compelled to prioritize diets, beauty, and being 'nice girls' as their primary assets to win love. It's apologizing for existing and doubting her right to personal power. Reverse psychology is at play when women believe that the masculine is superior, so they forgo exploring the Feminine side of their own nature as a source of strength.  

For the record, I'm no longer a child, and over my lifetime, many things have changed. Today, women are in those so-called "important" roles as doctors, lawyers, business owners, policemen, priests, astronauts, even heads of state, but how many credit the femininine for their fortune or do they see it as a curse and a weakness to overcome?

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