For a lot of my life I didn’t consider myself as female. In fact, I knew I used to be a feminine and recognized as such, however embodying femininity didn’t appear to come back routinely with my feminine type. Due to this fact, after I was a toddler I categorised myself as a tomboy. In spite of everything, I most well-liked sports activities to dolls and had extra in widespread with my brother than both of my sisters. However I at all times felt I used to be lacking some very important a part of my femininity.
Analysis reveals that I’m not the one woman to expertise such an existential disaster. Actually, research point out women between the ages of 9 and 11 are vulnerable to assemble a dichotomy between the “girly-girl” and “tomboy.” Regardless of figuring out these classes, women on this age vary fluidly shift between the 2 labels — proof the dichotomy is a false one.
Someday round puberty women start so as to add nuance to those labels. Maybe it’s the results of elevated cognitive capability, or perhaps it’s associated to the bodily maturation youngsters expertise at this age. Although my pursuits hadn’t modified, my male associates started perceiving me in a different way when our our bodies grew to become much less androgynous. I didn’t really feel any extra female, however abruptly I used to be perceived as such. Beneath this shifted male gaze, the phrase tomboy not appeared to suit, and the label grew to become simple, for a time, to shrug off.
Femininity in Marriage
After I was a sophomore in school, I learn by the e book Love and Respect with my then-boyfriend. We have been desirous about marriage, and studying by the textual content appeared like a great way to find out the energy of our potential future collectively. (Spoiler alert: We didn’t work out.) As I learn every chapter, I grew to become an increasing number of disconcerted with the opposing positions offered by the creator: Ladies crave love whereas males want respect. I heard (and nonetheless hear) this chorus echoed by the church. It wasn’t that I doubted both supposition — each of these issues appeared true sufficient. Nonetheless, I did query establishing a distinction between the 2 issues. Certainly love and respect weren’t mutually unique. Shouldn’t one movement from the opposite? Don’t males want love and girls want respect as effectively?
For the primary time since puberty, I noticed I hadn’t utterly shed my inhibiting tomboy cloak. I felt inherently flawed, as if the biology that was imagined to bestow femininity upon me left a eager curiosity in baseball as a substitute. I didn’t join with the picture of femininity solid by Love and Respect, nor did I see myself within the equally in style Fascinating. The girl offered in these books was empathetic; she craved emotional intimacy and prioritized high quality time. She was mainly characterised as an emotional being, and I used to be decidedly not emotional.
Throughout my junior yr of faculty, my roommate honored me with the nickname “Tin Man” after I admitted (on the conclusion of My Sister’s Keeper) that I’d by no means cried throughout a film. To today my husband is extra more likely to cry and is much extra empathetic than I’m. If I’d recognized that as a twenty-something school scholar, I’d’ve assumed we each occupied damaged variations of femininity and masculinity. I additionally would’ve assumed a profitable marriage hinged on my skill to by some means embody a femininity that didn’t naturally spring from my personhood.
No one ever straight informed me this, however the info was there. I knew {that a}) femininity meant a bend towards emotional sensitivity, b) that emotional sensitivity made it simple for girls to obtain love and provides respect in a wedding, and c) as a way to be a purposeful a part of that equation, I wanted to embrace the extra female qualities that have been absolutely buried beneath a layer of emotional harm.
As we speak, I do know I’m female. However I nonetheless haven’t triggered some chemical response in my mind that catalyzes a transfer towards emotional vulnerability. For higher or worse, my attitudes and emotional inclinations are nonetheless largely the identical, and my pursuits nonetheless extra regularly align with stereotypically masculine artifacts. The distinction is I not consider these traits as boyish options mistakenly embodied by a girl.
The Validity of the Line
When tradition attracts an arbitrary line between two issues, these caught within the center are more likely to both migrate to 1 aspect or analyze the validity of the road. I selected the latter. I by no means discovered the way to challenge a extra culturally normative taste of femininity — as a substitute, I’m striving to redefine femininity.
A latest examine confirmed that males who request household go away are perceived as unreliable staff, they usually’re additionally stigmatized as female. Whereas that is attention-grabbing, it’s not shocking. Culturally normative femininity, each inside and out of doors the church, tends to outline femininity by way of each weak spot and uncertainty. Certain, we might use completely different phrases (fragile, light, meek), however we basically imply the identical factor: Ladies are inherently gentle in a manner that males usually are not; they’re irrational and extra unsure than logic-heeding males.
If we work to push again on arbitrary gender norms (women put on pink, boys put on blue; boys don’t cry, women aren’t logical, and so forth.), we affirm the concept that gender isn’t swayed by issues like emotional expression and an curiosity in sports activities. Biblical teachings clarify that our Creator outlined completely different purposeful functions for women and men, however these functions usually are not reliant on our cultural interpretations of femininity and masculinity.
A part of redefining femininity has meant creating house for a various array of traits to manifest in ladies. I joyfully acknowledge the femininity that matches neatly into the culturally normative description, however I likewise acknowledge the femininity that doesn’t. I reward God for the clever, fierce, trailblazing, form ladies whose lives inform a shifting tradition and reshape what biblical womanhood actually means. I reward God for girls who serve and girls who lead, educating us that femininity doesn’t equal subordination. I have a good time the female voices that select to shout in a tradition that will reasonably they whisper. I thank God for girls who cry and girls who don’t, and for the truth that there may be room for such variance amongst godly ladies.
An Imperfect Decision
I’m not female as a result of I really feel, or as a result of I wish to bake, and even as a result of I’ve borne a toddler. I’m female as a result of God created me feminine.
I nonetheless really feel there are points of my personhood which might be dysfunctional, however I not classify these failings as dysfunctional femininity. I’m brazen after I ought to be meek — not as a result of ladies are biologically inclined to meekness however as a result of Christ has declared the goodness of meekness in all folks. I sow anger after I ought to search peace; I’m proud after I ought to be humble; I maintain grudges after I’m referred to as to forgiveness. All of those failings would possibly impede the way in which God has referred to as me to perform as a girl, however none of them are inherently tied to womanhood, and none of them can be completely resolved on earth.
Misguided perceptions of femininity and masculinity aren’t issues distinctive to the church, however they do create an ethical conundrum the church should grapple with in a novel manner. How can we affirm reality in “female and male He created them” with out making a dichotomy few can comfortably or naturally exist in?
Maybe step one shouldn’t be merely to look at what God’s phrase says about gender but in addition to look at what it doesn’t say.
Copyright 2016 Val Dunham. All rights reserved.
