Yes. I am obsessed with the thought. I have been since a very long time. For me, femininity was more of a 'wanting' than a 'necessity'. Its such a beautiful way of living. Grace, elegance, patience, gentleness, empathy, sensitiveness (even Wikipedia agrees with a few)...they are some of the many fragments that when woven together results in femininity.
But as much as I wish to be feminine, I am au naturel at being the very antonym of all those words listed above. Okay I am all of them in certain situations...but they all have a very short time span.
GRACE : I am at its pinnacle when I try my hand at dance...Mostly I keep dancing the Bharatanatyam way unconsciously unless a 'peppy' song comes my way. (I ditch grace and shake my neck the 'robot' way).
ELEGANCE : Oh! You 'ought' to see me saree-clad! My hips curve in automatically, my hands stop being haphazardly thrown in air when I walk (err...more of a cat walk) and i hardly frown and smile generously!
(HONESTLY, none of them are fake...what can I say...its the saree effect!) The moment I slip into my tracks,...i guess you all can guess...
PATIENCE : Wait! 'THIS', I am! (Having said this, I exclude all my day today encounters with Amma). YES. I start implementing the patience virtue from 'self'. YES. I am easily the most loved person on Earth, but only 'I' know how much of an effort it takes 'at times' to loathe me! And this virtue of mine extends to my friends, acquaintances, arts etc.
GENTLENESS : Okay...uh....hmmm...errr....hmmm...Sigh!!!! I GIVE UP! I am sorry! Not even 1 single significant moment in my life where I have acted gentle! Oh wait! Yes...with BABIES!!!( I restrict them to homo sapiens and domestic animals). I am gentle when I cuddle and fondle. But who isn't???
As gentleness is an optional antonym to being loud, I again do not possibly fit this tag. Its a LOUD NO NO. I am loud in all respects. Be it my 'famous' ringing laughter, the size of my mouth opening while uttering 'the most' gentle words (you see me talking and you would easily believe the 'Yashoda seeing the world in little Krishna's mouth' tale) and my arguments with people (they are just loud. Not harsh).
P.S - With mom, its mandatory loudness.
EMPATHY : Hmmm...Tricky one. I empathize seldom. But when I do, I really do. Most of the times I am better off asking people to stand up for themselves instead of saying,"Oh...I understand"..."Poor you"...."That is soooo hard for a girl" and shit like that.
SENSITIVENESS : Most of the times, this word is obliviously coherent with being 'fragile'. I have stopped going forward with baseless assumptions. So considering the literal sensitiveness, I do have it in me. NO. I am not talking about being sensitive to people's harsh words or to the harsh merciless sun that gives me a tan above my naturally tanned skin! I am highly sensitive to Art-all kinds.
All these observations and realizations make me wonder in what way am I feminine internally. Then I revolted against accepting the standard guidelines of being feminine. Apparently all these tags that are supposedly describing the essences exist majorly in Art. Paintings, poetry and sculptures have frozen these momentary femininity. Living by these tags every second of the day in today's extrovert world is as impossible as matching the speed of light (hopefully I do not evoke the physicist in you)!
I conclude stating that 'femininity' and 'masculinity' do not lie in these 'once' generally observed adjectives. Its all lies in the 'testosterone'. You can have a masculine or a feminine body. But how feminine you 'feel' lies only in the hormones. I feel very much feminine in spite of greeting the guys by slapping their back, greeting my girl friends by spanking their butt (its a 9 year old habit I just cannot get rid off), lifting heavy baggage for my parents and having a gently visible mustache. Yes. I have understood femininity the right way.
LOL, I relate with this post...every bit.. Usually, I act like this tom-boy but in a sari, I became all girlish... Super transformation :P .. Gentle with kiddos and ze guy (at times) ;) .. U do good with empthy..but for me I have to empathise...sore losers around me :p .. hahaha...
ReplyDeleteLove the post :D
@confused soul : hahahah losers come losers go...But the really cant get the empathizer in me! :P
ReplyDeleteANd what a prompt comment girl! You blog 24 by 7 is it??? Really glad I did a good job! :)
Femininity is highly over-rated, what with all the plucking and threading and waxing and twirly behavior and being 'proper'. One should be given the freedom to behave exactly as they please as long as they aren't dirty or crass and choose to be girly and feminine WHEN THEY WANT.
ReplyDelete(Sorry, I have issues with body hair and beautificatory procedures in general:D)
Nice to know that you are feminine naturally, I envy you that for I am the uncrowned Queen of Klutz:P
@pee vee : You have a man in your life who has fallen for your feminity! THAT SAYS IT ALL! :)
ReplyDeleteSo very true! The whole feminist concept is over rated, if only women could understand and behave like a human and not compete with men, world would be much happier place and Mars,Venus could just be planets without a gender bias.
ReplyDeleteMen have already been punished enough by having to live with a stick that changes its size every morning, why bother?
Cheers [_]@
Chintu Singh
@chintan : I do not sympathize men as much you do. :P But yes. Feminists need to get a life sometimes. They sometimes put is in a more pitiful position by trying to stand up for woman rights. But i gess neither of this is my point of discussion in my article :P
ReplyDeleteThnks Chintan. A bold woman's comment etched in my blog. Means a lot to me! :)
Hi Akila,Luv this beautiful blog and fantastic posts on various topic.This post on 'Understanding Feminity' says it all.Thanks for sharing and for the add too.
ReplyDelete@ Bon Appetit : I am more than just glad that going through my blog wasnt ur waste of time :) I love your simple and really helpful posts on food! Keep em coming! :)
ReplyDeleteFemininity is a conspiracy theory - more heard than seen :)
ReplyDelete@Purba
ReplyDeleteand we LIVE the theory our way! ;)
Akila, I don't understand. What is Femininity, you say? As in how do you define femininity?
ReplyDelete@apeetha : Darling. Instead of DEFINING femininity, in this post I have spoken about what all the 'so called feminine' factors are not really the factors that had 'once' defined femininity.
ReplyDeleteI know I am feminine sans these. So I analysed myself with respect to these factors and learnt that I dnt manifest them more than 2 %! Inspite of not acting that way I feel feminine. Hence disapproving of the society's expectations from a woman to be lady like. If I have confused you more, lemme know. I wil call u milady! :)