I’m not even close to being an example of masculinity. I have a small build, feminine interests, and I’m emotionally sensitive. Even as a child, my hobbies leaned more towards things like arts and crafts than they did sports. And while I’ve never seen it as a problem, a large part of society does.
Why are we scared of femininity?
After all, people weren’t actually scared of the acts of drawing or playing dress-up with friends. The fear and disapproval came from the fact that a little boy wasn’t fitting into his social boundaries. I should have been outside roughhousing with the other boys, not making arts and crafts with the girls.
These boundaries and roles are social constructs. Culture says that men are tough, physical, and they like to get their hands dirty. They’re messy, raw, and only display emotion if it’s violent or sexual. I couldn’t possibly enjoy delicate or sensitive things, according to my genitalia.
Understandably, these assumptions are harmful and inaccurate. By associating masculinity with dominance, our culture places femininity as inferior. Thus, we’re left with a society that supports people who are overly aggressive and violent, excusing their actions as “natural” due to their sexual assignment. Male victims of rape and abuse are often ignored, ridiculed, and silenced because they were in a situation in which their masculinity didn’t meet constructed standards. When someone acts in a feminine way, society stereotypes them as lesser.
A large part of what causes ridicule against femininity can be linked to society’s tendency to flatten differences into binaries, also known as binary opposition. Academics explain binary opposition as the concept that “elements of human culture can only be understood in relation to one another”, and that these elements “cannot coexist”. In other words, we often see things as opposites to better understand them, regardless if they actually are opposites or not. For example, masculinity is traditionally seen as strong, thus femininity is seen as weak. Masculinity is depicted as rational, so we default femininity to being irrational. This tendency to create binaries where there are none extends into the base concept of gender itself: masculinity and femininity are incorrectly seen as mutually exclusive stereotypes.
When I was making crafts or playing dress-up with the girls in my childhood, I was also defying standard social conventions. Through partaking in more feminine activities while existing as a child who was assigned male at birth, I was breaking down cultural constructs of what was natural, exposing flaws in a common way of thinking. Any discomfort I caused wasn’t because of my actions themselves, but because society had long-ago decided that I couldn’t be part of both masculine and feminine things.
So instead of pushing femininity to the side, why don’t we embrace it? Emotions and delicacy are just as important as strength and assertiveness. Let’s acknowledge that gender constructs aren’t accurate in describing everyone. Instead of seeing masculinity and femininity as opposites, let's recognize that both have traits that apply to people of all genders. Most importantly, let’s get rid of the notion that gender is binary.
