The idea of Femininity : is it harmful or helpful to today's black female youth?
- Thread starter Kitsch
- Start date
Need a definition and context breh.
Elle Driver
Veteran
What's the idea of femininity?
CinnaSlim
Queen of Swords
No. Black women have been robbed of their femininity quite often. Black women should embrace their femininity and not be shamed for it.
Black men, like black women have been hypermasculinized. You can compare between the two genders but the effects are quite different.
At the end of the day, you can not have femininity without masculinity, they are not mutually exclusive. Everyone has a different level of balance between the two, which is why we have masculine females and feminine males.
Black men, like black women have been hypermasculinized. You can compare between the two genders but the effects are quite different.
At the end of the day, you can not have femininity without masculinity, they are not mutually exclusive. Everyone has a different level of balance between the two, which is why we have masculine females and feminine males.
Elle Driver
Veteran
Yeah so
InDePickWest
Im Not American
We've been dealing with masculinization since this shyt started. It's a way to strip us of our Black womanhood.
Ghost_In_A_Shell
Talk No Jutsu
StickStickly
Superstar
Femininity has been important for most black women in most parts of black society. Definitely nothing wrong with it.
I'm interested to know what people mean by the masculinized statements
I'm interested to know what people mean by the masculinized statements
This is why I'm starting to loathe gender roles. I'm a woman so I'm always feminine even when I have to cut grass, take out trash or play baseball with my daughter. That's just apart my life. I'm not trying to be a man but shyt needs to get done and why should I wait for a guy to do it, if I'm fully capable?
PlainSight
Anon
Conversely, the roles we have to live up to are largely performative in nature. Women have it worse IMO, but men greatly suffer aswell trying to live up to particular hypermasculine ideals for peer approval. The older I get, the more I see it glaringly, even on this forum where it's anonymous largely.
I don't think the idea (or better word would be concept) is harmful to black women, it is helpful on it's own, but it is only harmful when the concept of femininity is weaponized against women who don't fit the ideals of what we (men) think a woman "should" be - I don't mean in terms of looks but character and role in life. A good example was the weird pedestalization of Steph Curry's wife. She made some tweets that were initially quite derogatory of certain other women, and she was IMO rightly checked for it. Ever since then, a number of men have used her as a tool to backlash against women who don't fit her mold.
I think the way we think of masculinity and femininity - particularly where gender is concerned - is incredibly binary and limited in terms of expression. We pigeon-hole ourselves and police other people into forcing themselves into these pigeonholes too, and tell ourselves that's what it is supposed to be - meanwhile some people are depressed and experiencing mental issues as an expense. Black women are undoubtedly a significant part of that collateral damage. So I think the idea of femininity is helpful, but only if we accept that femininity is a much more vast concept overall.
Would you put yourself in harms way that comes with masculinity or the backbreaking physical labor? Given the opportunity, would you really want to compete with men?
Do I want to? No, but if that's what is NECESSARY then, yes. I'm not interested in competing with men or being a man for that matter but life can't stop because a man isn't around and it doesn't matter if it's because of my poor choices or not.