Long, long ago, back before I met my husband, I met another young man at (my former) church.
I thought he was cute, fun, and funny. We spent a few months meeting up regularly for lunch, dinner, or boba. Always talking, always laughing.
Never doing anything that clearly wasn’t just friendship. Never defining the relationship.
Eventually, I noticed that he wasn’t initiating as much as he used to. I figured he was probably losing interest in anything potentially romantic, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding. So, over bubble tea drinks, I asked if he could clarify how he understood what we’d been doing these last few months—did he see it as a friendship or as dating?
He said he was interested in dating at first but then decided he wasn’t anymore. Which is fine.
He then proceeded to tell me why he wasn’t interested anymore. Which I can’t imagine I asked for—but I also wasn’t going to stop him from telling me.
He told me he was looking for someone a little more, well, feminine.
A memory sprang to mind: a few weeks prior, he and I had met up for lunch at an awesome Mexican restaurant that made these delicious, unusually enormous burritos. I ordered one and ate the whole thing.
I didn’t do it to try to impress him. But part of me imagined he might be at least a little bit impressed. Instead, he looked slightly perturbed. This surprised me, but I didn’t think too much of it at the time.
But yes, if he was looking for a young woman with a dainty appetite, demure and not opinionated, someone who batted her mascara-laced eyelashes attractively at him rather than talking and laughing with him as a friend, as an equal—I was certainly not that woman.
I reflect on this experience, now—long ago as it was—because I found myself thinking of it recently, while facilitating a six-week class at my current church.
The class was called “God, Gender, Power.”
I started off the first session by inviting people to collectively brainstorm qualities and characteristics that our culture—particularly dominant US culture, but also any other cultures people in the class had experience with—tends to associate with masculinity and femininity.
What exactly is considered masculine? What is considered feminine? The lists began to fill out.
One the one side: physically strong, emotionally composed. Intellectual, educated, professionally successful. Assertive, aggressive, commands respect. Self-sufficient, knows how to fix things. Can be angry, can be violent. Rational, objective.
One the other side: nurtures, cares for children. Passive and submissive. Weak, dainty, innocent. Dependent on others, particularly on a man. Prioritizes family and relationships over professional success. Emotional, irrational, unpredictable, subjective.
It became very clear, very quickly, that each of these lists paints a caricature. The vast majority of humans are not accurately described by either set of qualities.
When it comes to a dominant US cultural construction of femininity—recognizing that ideas of gender are often constructed very differently in different cultures and in different eras—none of the women in the room fit the bill. And none of us particularly wanted to.
We recognized that all of us—male, female, nonbinary, or otherwise—embody some combination of both lists.
As people of faith, we believe that this is how God created us. And we believe that God created us good.
In the class, we talked about how our society’s construction of femininity often takes the shape of an impossible web of conflicting expectations. Brené Brown fleshes out this idea compellingly in I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t): Making the Journey from “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough”—as, of course, does America Ferrera’s character in the recent Barbie movie.
We also talked about how our societal construction of masculinity often takes the shape of a “man box”—that is, as Rose Hackman puts it in Emotional Labor: The Invisible Work Shaping Our Lives and How to Claim Our Power,“a very rigid set of behavior and personality rules men are expected to adhere to if they are to be safe from being challenged on their status as ‘real men.’”
People in the class seemed to resonate with the idea that it’s important to talk about how these things are constructed—so that we can have a chance of deconstructing them. And most of us wanted to deconstruct them.
None of us women wanted to feel like we’re failing at performing a femininity that is, as Ferrera put it, “literally impossible”—or, for the men, that they’re less of a man if they don’t conform to the (often toxic) traits considered manly.
I shared with the group in our last session that these conversations were personally healing for me. It was a powerful experience, to speak directly about gendered roles and stereotypes in community—in a church community—with the hope of busting up these stereotypes together.
I already knew that God did not create me to check off a set of boxes deemed “feminine” by dominant US culture. God created me as a unique human with a unique set of characteristics—in the words of the psalmist, fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps 139:14).
I do not want to be “more feminine,” whatever that might mean. I just want to be the best version of me.
I knew these things for myself. And it was still so powerful to have them affirmed by a faith community. To be reminded that I’m not alone in the journey of learning how to be a woman in whatever awesome ways God made me to be one, constricting societal expectations be damned. To feel that perhaps together we can break free of the impossible web and become more fully who we were meant to be.
This is a gift that religious communities, at their best, can give. They are often places of gendered shame—but they don’t have to be. They can be places of belonging, of community, of exploring who we are together and encouraging one another on the journey.
This is healing; this is my hope. This is what people of faith can build together.
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An interesting post.
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Thanks!
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When news of our impending divorce filtered through the neighborhood, my across the street neighbor came over and gave her unsolicited opinion. She wasn’t surprised I was divorcing my husband since he never stepped up and did the man things such as washing the cars, gardening, yard work, putting up the Christmas lights or walking the dog. I didn’t mind doing these things–even enjoyed a few. The real issue was my ex was totally me-centered, not the fact he didn’t wax the cars or other ‘male’ chores.
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The (gendered) assumptions people make! (And the unsolicited opinions!)
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So this A** Hat didn’t see you as “feminine” because you ate a Burrito? That’s completely insane.
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Hmmmm MiamiMagus, I do agree it sounds insane but then I think back to cultural mores, and it was once considered a compliment if a woman ate “like a bird.” I think those unconscious paradigms do stick with the culture at large. So it’s a special thanks to Liz to draw attention to this topic so we can consciously make a change.
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Amen, I just think that is an utterly stupid reason to not dare someone. And especially from a guy who more than likely ate even more than that. I don’t know, it’s just absolutely mind boggling how in the 21st century this Ass backwards kind of thinking prevails. But you’re right. It absolutely has remained in the collective culture even on an unconscious level.
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Totally, and I didn’t mean to make it sound like it was only about the big burrito – that was just one example of behavior-not-coded-as-feminine that came to mind readily! But yes, I do think that even in the 21st century we often find ourselves stuck in thinking we hoped was very, very outdated…
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Sadly yes
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Hello–this was not at all what I thought the essay would be, from the title.
I had imagined a story about a butch lesbian being told she needed to femme up in order to escape discrimination. Now, the opposite is happening to butch lesbians, who may feel pressure to “transition” since trans men may be able to “pass” and suffer less discrimination of the sort butch women get. Plus , in this scenario, they have acquired male privilege, whether that is an unintended consequence or not.
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Hi jammyali. I think your example about butch lesbians connects well with what Liz shares here. The issue is with the pressure to be other than we are in terms of our gender expressions. And it’s interesting to think about how particular social pressures change over time – even for butch lesbians, as you point out – the goalpost is always moving! But, we have other possibilities, especially is spaces like FAR, that can be, in Liz’s words, “places of belonging, of community, of exploring who we are together and encouraging one another on the journey.”
Onward and upward! Or, sin big!, as Mary Daly would say, and “throw your life as far as it will go!”
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Absolutely – aiming for freedom for all of us to be who we most wonderfully and authentically are – whether butch lesbians, transgender folks, or cis-het women like me who don’t fit neatly into traditionally “feminine” boxes. On and upward together!
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Thank you, Liz, for sharing about your early experience and the very cool class with your church. It’s so important for us to do this work of deconstructing limiting frameworks of our humanity together — it makes it more possible and empowering. I’m a big believer that the work we do as small local communities, churches included, has the potential of long-lasting transformation that ripples out to our larger context. I love that you’re doing this at church!
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Yes!! Thanks so much for the encouragement – for me and for everyone else doing this work in small-seeming ways!
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Elizabeth, thank you for sharing. I enjoyed reading. I grew up preferring to be with males as I thought women difficult, back-stabbing, conniving and concerned with silly things such as long fingernails and lacy frills. As I moved into owning my app, the divine feminine app, I began to get to know many women who have and are redefining feminine. Feminine as in this poem here: “…We are not built to actualize your sense of masculinity through your traditional idea of femininity. We are built to bring in the voice of our Mother. Which is why Earth herself screams in our veins.” Learning to live and take great joy in the power of my femininity is an amazing journey that it sounds like you are on as well. In honor.
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Caryn, that’s beautiful – thanks so much for sharing! Together in the journey.
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Stereotypes do not exist as real people. Yet there is an image of a stereotype that comes to mind that becomes part of our expectations.
How that stereotype is defined in our imagination, I think, has a lot to do with how we’ve been influenced, what we’ve seen modeled, and what dominant culture impresses on us. Part of the process of maturing relates to whether we can or want to be critical of the allures of different stereotypes.
Discussions such as you described is important to develop as an authentic person.
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Thanks, Jasper – definitely.
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Not at all religious but deeply feminist which means I think that strict gender roles cause great deal of harm in the world. Good article, congratulations
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Thank you Rhona, that means a lot! So much harm.
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Good for you for teaching that class! I remember having a similar discussion in a class I took at seminary on domestic violence in theological perspective. Our professor was gay, by the way. My Mom is what they used to call a tomboy and I’ve always been very feminine. Luckily my mother loves me for me, but my father gave me grief because I didn’t like sports and wasn’t a tomboy. The stereotypes are still around. People assume that because I’m feminine and straight that I’m into cooking, sewing, and all things domestic and I’m not. I’ve also had women hassle me because I’m feminine. I am part of a women’s singing circle and there are a lot of lesbians in the circle and when I met them I was afraid that they wouldn’t accept me. Happily I was wrong about that! It is a shame that people are so judgmental and can’t just accept someone for who they are.
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That sounds like a much-needed seminary class! An an awesome singing circle – how cool. Here’s to accepting one another as we are, “feminine” or tomboy or all the other wonderful ways there are of being a woman!
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Ten years ago, I went on a date with a guy to a Mexican restaurant. This guy told me he never saw a woman eat like me before. I was perplexed as I didn’t eat any different than anyone else as far as I knew-male or female. Apparently, other women he knew ate like birds. I told I wasn’t going to starve myself as to please some guy. I wasn’t fat by any means, why should I eat less? Anyway, after 8 and a half years of marriage and still going strong, I don’t think he minds…lol.
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Ugh, it can be so hard to have a health relationship with food, and perceptions that women do/should “eat like birds” certainly don’t help! Congrats on 8 1/2 years of eating together and enjoying it!
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