Jen, you and I have led similar lives. "Feminine" was never a word used to describe me. The fact that I was so athletic and had a lack of interest in things socially determined to be "feminine," forever relegated me to the world of the "tomboy."I always felt that I was expected to prove I was a girl, so I watched my friends latch on to the most exaggerated images our culture offered in order to stridently shore up their femininity. For an elementary school girl, a Cinderella dress is nothing less than an existential insurance policy; a crinolined bulwark to fortify a still-shaky sense of identity. But I could never do it. Or rather, I never chose to do it.
And then, there was the added race, ethnicity, and other cultural dynamics that folded into our culture's views of femininity. For example, every woman can feel marginalized, but a white woman is still a part of the “in” group used for the standard of beauty and desire, and faces different definitions and expectations of femininity.
I can’t say I know what femininity is (as culturally defined as that might be), or that I will ever know what it is, but finally I've gotten to a place where I no longer care what it is. And that's a pretty awesome place to be.
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