Has Femininity lost its true essence?
For the longest time, and even till date, appreciating and embracing femininity has not been accepted by everyone or every culture. We have lived and thrived in a partichal society for so long that challenging its systems and modus operandi is enervating. The fight against patriarchy has been on for so long that as the systems are changing, most women are loosing touch with their feminine energy. They want to exchange their feminine energy for a dominating, controlling, energy, an energy neither men nor women were supposed to have.
Before we go on to answer the question in the heading, we have to know what femininity is and identify some of its characterisitics.
Femininity defines the attributes or qualities that women are identified with or rather, are supposed to be idenfied with. Femininity also refers to the traditional and liberal roles that traditional and liberal women exude. Femininity should have never posed a problem or seen as a degrading space to be in if there were no patriarchal or toxic masculine energy mortifying the roles, value, worth, and place of women in the society. Femininity should have never been demeaning if women stuck to the feminine energy God created us with, and just like there has been typical negative stereotypes giving the wrong perspective of a certain class, group of people, gender, or race, negative stereotypes have made a caricature of what femininity truly is.
Mannerisms of Feminine Energy
Due to the demeaning concepts that altered the foundations of true femininity, parodies have replaced feminism, passing down toxic feminine culture to the younger generations. As generational cycle breakers, it is important to unlearn these false parodies, redefine femininsm and bask in the beauty of our feminine energy, passing down healthy cultures to our children and their children.
To redefine femininity and build a healthy feminine culture, there are boundaries to be communicated and respected. Truth be told, the main cause of toxic femininity is years of boundaries being disrespected by the society and male counterparts, and the unavailability of healthy spaces in the families or society to communicate these boundaries for the fear of loss of love, abandonment, or wrong stigmatization.
Boundaries of femininity.
Femininity is soft, but not weak. Femininity tolerates but within limits and boundaries. Femininity has the capacity to give love, but is also very deserving of reciprocated love, care, nuture, and energy. Femininity is nurturing and is equalling deserving to be nutured by her people and environment. Femininity is tender, affectionate, and filled with empathy. Femininity has the capacity to multiply whatever it receives.
Feminity is supportive but sensitive. Femininity is daunting, fearless, and powerful, but expressed through physically weak vessels (1 Peter 3.7, AMP). Femininity provides healthy spaces to expressed emotions, to feel seen and heard. Femininity expresses strengths in different capacities, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, mentally, and financially.
Femininity deserves to be heard. Femininity deserves the space to be expressive too. Feminity deserves tenderness, love, and nuture. Femininity deserves opportunities to demonstrate strength, resilience, intelligence, and smartness outside the confines of the home.
Luke 6.31-34 says, "Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that. If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that. If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that’s charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that".
Femininity obeys this rule of thumb, takes up the initiative to show love, but often times, receives the bare minimum or no love at all in return. Society has made being affectionate, empathetic, and emotional seem like a responsibility for women, as though women owe men and the world love just because we are soft. This flawed mentality makes most men see women as objects of chores, sexual satisfaction, or domestic slaves. Society has taught women to put their needs for love, and affection aside, pouring into others while receiving little to none in return. Society has taught women to be silent about their needs or demands, shaming women who are assertive, making assertivesness a masculine thing, while women are supposed to be quiet, tolerating, and swallowing nonsense from people.
Women are taught to give love, affection, support, empathy, emotional availability, tolerance, without expecting anything or the same in return.
Due the many social constructs disctating what women should be and what we should not, what we should give, and what we should not, the ideal kind of woman to be and unacceptable kind of woman to not be, many women all over the world have taken up initiatives to demand freedom from the stereotypes and negative constructs. This advocate for change led to the formation and rise of the Feminism Agenda. Sadly, the purpose of this agenda has been miscommunicated and misrepresented, giving men and women false ideologies of feminism and what it advocates for.
To some women, they mistake the advocacy for freedom to be advocacy for change in power and control. Instead of embracing their femininity and walking in the freedom of who and what they want to do and become, they engage in a power tussle with men, not trying to lead from a place of love, and understanding, but from a place of deep hurt, bitterness, and a rage to revenge against men and society. This is how toxic feminism is birthed.
Ideally, no particular gender was created to dominate or handle power. When God created the world in the beginning, He handed the earth over to mankind, both the male and female He created (Genesis 1.7, "God created human beings; He created them godlike, reflecting God’s nature. He created them male and female".) However, because the ideal roles and responsibilities of each gender were not properly communicated, the law of nature took course, making the man a provider because of his physical strengths and the women a care giver because of her body anatomy. This was further misinterpreted as women were being looked down on the more, and seen as lesser and incapable to work in fields and industries where physical strengths were not needed to get work done, thus reducing women to kitchen materials and baby making machines.
The long-term effect of this negative stigmatization produced traumatized females. However, more than that, it led society to belive and deeply ingrain the mentality that occupying positions of power and authority, climbing the ladder of success in different work fields and industries, handling leaderships positions is a masculine thing. This created a huge marginalization gap in corporate and highly advanced environment, such that women who choose to beat the system and change the status quo face a lot more challenges than "acquiring needed skills".
Because such feats in life are seen to be masculine, most women tend to give up their soft feminine energy for masculine energy. In trying to be more masculine than feminine, they become controlling, and dominating in a toxic way, forgetting that from the beginning, as God created, they too had the right to lead and dominate, hence, do not have to exchange their feminine energy for masuline energy to achieve or become what God has called them to be; also forgetting that neither male nor female was supposed to be controlling or dominating over another.
In the modern day world, femininity is slowly loosing its meaning and essence. Because femininity has always been associated with soft and weak, no one wants to be seen a weakling, hence, women are dropping their soft spots, identifying themselves as "alpha females". This has birthed toxic femininity, producing power thirsty women, who never want to take no for an answer (even when it is rightly deserved), women who are hungry to rule and dominate, not from a place of love and passion to create positive change, but to gain a chance to retaliate against the society, to get back at men.
If more women learn to bask in, and take advantage of their feminine energy, they will have a lot less to deal with, because really, exuding feminine energy in such confident way has a way of opening doors and getting us what we want without changing us to power-thirsty monsters seeking revenge.
In the light of addressing the male dominant behaviour, many men tend to use the scripture on submission to suppress women. Let's revisit that verse of the scripture: Ephesians 5.21-24, "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything".
This scripture clearly and solely refers to leadership in marriage, homes, and families, and has absolutely nothing to do with deserving leaderships, positions of authorities, or job opportunities over women just because you own a male reproductive organ and biceps. A woman is called to submit only to her husband, the man she is legally and spiritually married to, and not every and any man in the streets demanding power and control. As a man, your leadership privileges ends in your home. You do not have leadership privileges over a woman, not even your wife (as the case may be) in your work place, or any other place just because you are a man. The wisdom to lead does not come preinstalled with your reproductive organ or your muscles.
You too are called to submit; to your masters, leaders, teachers, pastors, and most importantly, to God. You are also called to submit to your wife in leadership by putting her needs first, leading with humility, love and service, and not the urge to control her. Outside your home, submission is mandatory to the people you are accountable to and owe responsibilities. Somewhere along the line, you might have to submit to your female boss, and just because she is a woman, does not mean she is undeserving of submission from you.
