Ten Thoughts on Femininity

#1

Femininity escapes definition. I can only give you signs of it—when a girl is pliant, complicit in her own seduction, in love with the fact that she’s a girl, like when a girl takes away your ever-present urge to go on a shooting spree. We’re no better as men for knowing this, and it doesn’t explain what femininity is.

#2

When a man has a masculine wife, it’s always the case he seeks femininity from other, typically feminine pursuits like art or cooking. Not sure if this is cause or effect.

#3

A girl who can relax in her femininity when she’s around you is like an applause break in comedy. It’s difficult for a novice comic to get booked at shows, but if you get an applause break during your set, the owner of the club tracks you down afterward, talks to you for at least five minutes, which is five hours in club owner time, and invites you back to do a longer set “whenever you can fit it in.” What seems like an industry of brick walls becomes an open pasture.

Girls can seem tough, too—they won’t call back, they’ll manipulate you, they’ll say one thing and do another. But once you get them in touch with their femininity—which only occurs when you’re more masculine—a dump truck of roofies wouldn’t make them easier to manage.

#4

Can you be strong and feminine? No. What women typically mean by “strong” is “masculine.” They act like men and think lipstick makes up for it. A masculine woman is about as attractive as a male nanny. Women can only be strong—in a healthy way, not as a pretense—when they’re in a relationship with a man and so can borrow from his boundary when need be.

#5

Can you be intelligent and feminine? Yes. Intelligence is a gender-neutral trait. If intelligence was a masculine trait, then smart guys would be good with girls.

#6

Femininity is the follower. It must be in the presence of masculinity to exist. A girl cannot decide to be feminine any more than you can decide to feel what it’s like to listen to your favorite song without actually listening to it. To complain that modern woman has become too masculine is like the CEO who blames the company’s failure on his employees. It all comes back to you, and even if your employees are morons, you’re the one who picked them. We could even define masculinity as a psychological state in which we see femininity in girls.

#7

Some girls don’t have it in them to be feminine. And some audiences don’t have it in them to go into an applause break. Oh well, there will be clunky shows, you get through them and move on. Your need to complain about audiences tells me nothing about the audience and everything about your need to complain.

#8

Femininity is alive and well in the context of a relationship. Or it can be, according to you. But in culture, it has been gradually eroded since woman’s suffrage. Women’s suffrage the societal equivalent of a man on a date who says, “I don’t care where we go to eat, why don’t you pick?” It’s equal and fair and perhaps even morally right, but it negates polarity. Equality negates sexuality. It’s unsafe for a women to embrace femininity in a culture that not only doesn’t protect it, but lambastes it as frivolous.

#9

Feminism is the antithesis of femininity. It teaches women that in order to have more value, they need to be like men—to be dominant, assertive, and strong (ie high testosterone traits). This is, in fact, misogyny. Misogyny is the hatred of feminine traits, not women, which is why misogyny and homophobia are comorbid (which also explains why bull dykes don’t get along with gay men). However, it’s important to understand why feminism exists. Imagine if you were a young woman, out in the world, trying to make her way, and every guy you met was some 33-year-old graphic designer who worked 13 hours per week as a “consultant,” and his primary mode of transportation was a longboard. You too would think, “well, somebody around here needs to start acting like a man.” Then don’t be surprised when the new Ghostbusters is women in gender blackface.

#9

Femininity is when a girl is compliant with herself, with the symphony of her own desires. But it’s difficult for her to be compliant with herself and culture at the same time. Unsurprisingly, the more feminine girls I’ve known watch little television, don’t read newspapers, and in general, are cut off from the media. They read fiction and paint and do crosswords. The more we place “should’s” on how to act—especially the implicit “should’s” of culture—the more out of touch we inevitably are with ourselves.

#10

A quotation that encapsulates the effect of femininity on men is from the 1989 Batman. It’s when Alfred says to Bruce Wayne, referring to his new girlfriend Vicky Vale, “I feel there’s a certain weight that lifts when she’s here.”

We don’t need a woman’s job or money or decisions—we can do that on our own. But that feminine nature, there and present, is the serum that keeps men sane. With it, everything is worth it; without it, nothing is worth it. It’s important for women to understand how valuable this feeling is to us—and it’s our job to show them.