Defining Femininity

According to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, the word feminine refers to qualities that are “characteristic of or appropriate or peculiar to women.” Had I been the model for this word during my elementary school years, the definition might have included “awkward,” “messy,” or perhaps “unable to adapt to fashionable trends.”

My pre-adolescence is best characterized by the paint stains on my skirt, my mud-encrusted socks (thanks to kickball), and my inability to distinguish an eyeshadow brush from a Q-tip. It didn't take me long to realize that a majority of girls in my class shivered at the thought of paint touching their polished, acrylic fingernails. I also came to learn that mud-spotted socks were considered improper for a girl, and that any female who had yet to experiment with cosmetics by the sixth grade was considered naive.

By eighth grade, I was a blank slate upon which my friends endeavored to inscribe their own fashion ideals. At sleepovers, I was the first to be dragged off to the bathroom and assaulted with makeup and hair curlers.

These experiences transformed the way I thought about femininity. As I understood it, to be a girl was to coat oneself with powders. To be a girl was to only participate in a game if the field was devoid of mud puddles. To be a girl was to practice cursive until it was as elegant as the ink strokes in the Declaration of Independence. To be a girl was to never laugh or gasp in excitement when one of the boys caught a toad at the edge of the playground.

Considering that I could complete none of these tasks successfully, I considered myself unnatural – a freak who wore loose, mismatched clothing, had a fetish for amphibians and reptiles, and who had never touched an eyeliner pencil for fear of poking out an eyeball. Indeed, my future as a woman looked bleak.

As my high school life began, a greater diversity of students crushed these stereotypical notions of femininity. Although the inevitable icons of femininity still exist in the media – such as the petite woman advertising the sex appeal of beer – I am now free to do what feels natural to me without isolating myself from the rest of my gender.

I am proud to say that I am a young woman with a passion for being herself, even if it means straying from the idealistic portrayal of femininity. I am no longer a freak of nature but an individual developing my own sense of the world alongside other female teens. However, to be a female is to be feminine, is it not? So if femininity isn't centered around cosmetics, tidiness, and a fear of reptiles, what is it?

Webster's Dictionary speaks the truth of my gender. The word “feminine” does not refer to the traits of physical beauty and personality developed solely to attract the opposite sex. No, to be feminine is to embrace the unique characteristics that are true for all women: our bodies tend to be curvaceous, our hair comes in a wide diversity of styles, and who could forget our miraculous ability to bear children?

When God laid out the blueprints for men and women, he did not specify football and sloppiness for one gender while assigning hair products and elegance to the other. Rather, he left the major aspects of human life up to individual development, distinguishing the two genders only by body structure and reproductive organs.

Put bluntly, to be feminine is not to be a sissy, nor is it to be obsessed with one's appearance, and it is certainly not to harbor a dislike of snakes and spiders. Then again, to be feminine is not to defy all that is pink and glamorous either. To be feminine is to be a shareholder in the unique beauty of the female gender.