Femininity (also called womanliness or womanhood) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Femininity is socially constructed, but made up of both socially-defined and biologically-created factors. This makes it distinct from the definition of the biological female sex, as women, men, and transgender people can all exhibit feminine traits.
Behavioral traits generally considered feminine include gentleness, empathy, and sensitivity, though traits associated with femininity vary depending on location and context, and include a variety of social and cultural factors. The counterpart to femininity is masculinity.
The English word feminine is derived from the Latin femina meaning "woman" or "female," and literally "she who suckles".
Modern notions of femininity began during the English medieval period at the time of the bubonic plague in the 1300s. Women in the Middle Ages were referred to simply as maiden, wife, or widow. After the Black Death in England wiped out approximately half of the population, traditional gender roles of wife and mother changed, and opportunities opened up for women in society. The concept of "woman" changed in a number of ways and new language had to be created to describe these roles, with words like femininity and womanhood.
While the defining characteristics of femininity are not universally identical, some patterns exist. Gentleness, empathy, sensitivity, caring, sweetness, compassion, tolerance, nurturance, deference, and succorance are behaviors generally considered feminine.
In her 2007 book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, American transsexual writer and biologist Julia Serano writes that some behaviours, such as frequent smiling or avoiding eye contact with strangers, are considered feminine because they are practiced disproportionately by women, and likely have resulted from women's attempts to negotiate through a world which is sometimes hostile to them.
Serano writes that because contemporary culture is sexist, it assigns negative connotations to, or trivializes, behaviours understood to be feminine such as gossiping, behaving emotionally or decorating. It also, she writes, recasts and reimagines femininity through a male heterosexual lens, for example interpreting women's empathy and altruism as husband-and-child-focused rather than globally-focused, and interpreting women's interest in aesthetics as intended solely to entice or attract men. She writes that femininity is frequently understood as perplexing and mysterious, and notes that words like spell-binding and enchanting are often used to describe feminine women, which she says proves both that men don't need to understand and appreciate women's experiences in the same way in which women must understand and appreciate theirs, and indeed that men are discouraged from doing so.
Femininity is sometimes linked with sexual objectification and sexual appeal. Sexual passiveness, or sexual reception, is sometimes considered feminine while sexual assertiveness and sexual desire is sometimes considered masculine.
Ann Oakley's sex/gender dichotomy has had a considerable influence on sociologists defining masculine and feminine behavior as regulated, policed, and reproduced in our society, as well as the power structures relating to the concepts. Some queer theorists and other postmodernists, however, have rejected the sex (biology)/gender (culture) dichotomy as a "dangerous simplification".
An ongoing debate with regards to sex and psychology concerns the extent to which gender identity and gender-specific behavior is due to socialization versus inborn factors. According to Diane F. Halpern, both factors play a role, but the relative importance of each must still be investigated. The nature versus nurture question, for example, is extensively debated and is continually revitalized by new research findings. Some hold that feminine identity is partly a 'given' and partly a goal to be sought.
In 1959, researchers such as John Money and Anke Erhardt proposed the prenatal hormone theory. Their research argues that sexual organs bathe the embryo with hormones in the womb, resulting in the birth of an individual with a distinctively male or female brain; this was suggested by some to "predict future behavioral development in a masculine or feminine direction". This theory, however, has been criticized on theoretical and empirical grounds and remains controversial. In 2005, scientific research investigating sex and psychology showed that gender expectations and stereotype threat affect behavior, and a person's gender identity can develop as early as three years of age. Money also argued that gender identity is formed during a child's first three years.
Mary Vetterling-Braggin argues that all characteristics associated with femininity arose from early human sexual encounters which were mainly male-forced and female-unwilling, because of male and female anatomical differences. Others, such as Carole Pateman, Ria Kloppenborg, and Wouter J. Hanegraaff, argue that the definition of femininity is the result of how females must behave in order to maintain a patriarchal social system.
In Carl Jung's school of analytical psychology, the anima and animus are the two primary anthropomorphic archetypes of the unconscious mind. The anima and animus are described by Jung as elements of his theory of the collective unconscious, a domain of the unconscious that transcends the personal psyche. In the unconscious of the male it finds expression as a feminine inner personality: anima; equivalently, in the unconscious of the female it is expressed as a masculine inner personality: animus.
In Western cultures, the ideal of feminine appearance has traditionally included long, flowing hair, light skin, a narrow waist, and little or no body hair or facial hair. In other cultures, however, these standards may vary. For example, in many parts of the world, underarm hair is not considered unfeminine. In contemporary Western culture thinness and femininity are linked, but in past eras heavy women were considered more feminine than thin ones. Similarly, today the colour pink is strongly associated with femininity, whereas in the early 1900s pink was associated with boys and blue with girls.
These feminine ideals of beauty have been criticized by some feminists and others as restrictive, unhealthy, and discriminatory. In particular, the prevalence of anorexia and other eating disorders in Western countries has frequently been blamed on the feminine ideal of thinness.
Cultural standards vary a great deal on what is considered feminine. For example, in 16th century France, high heels were considered a distinctly masculine type of shoe, though they are currently considered feminine.
In Ancient Egypt, sheath and beaded net dresses were considered female clothing, while wraparound dresses, perfumes, cosmetics, and elaborate jewelry were worn by both men and women. In Ancient Persia, clothing was generally unisex, though women wore veils and headscarves. Women in Ancient Greece wore himations; and in Ancient Rome women wore the palla, a rectangular mantle, and the maphorion.
The typical feminine outfit of aristocratic women of the Renaissance was an undershirt with a gown and a high-waisted overgown, and a plucked forehead and beehive or turban-style hairdo.
Body alteration is the deliberate altering of the human body for aesthetic or non-medical purpose. One such purpose has been to induce perceived feminine characteristics in women.
For centuries in Imperial China, smaller feet were considered to be a more aristocratic characteristic in women. The practice of foot binding was intended to enhance this characteristic, though it often made walking difficult and painful.
In a few parts of Africa and Asia, neck rings are worn in order to elongate the neck. In these cultures, a long neck characterizes feminine beauty. The Padaung of Burma and Tutsi women of Burundi, for instance, practice this form of body modification.
In China until the twentieth century, tiny, bound feet for women were considered aristocratic and feminine
The Kayan people of Burma (Myanmar) associate the wearing of neck rings with feminine beauty.
The original breast implant prosthesis model from 1963
What is considered as the ideal feminine is defined by each individual culture based on what that culture considers valuable, and is often the subject of heated debate.
Men's perceptions of feminine beauty range widely among different cultures. In 1883, Francis Galton first noticed that averageness or koinophilia is a strong indicator of physical beauty. Today, a multi-billion-dollar industry exists around what men find feminine.
Studies show that men in Indo-European cultures find ideal feminine proportions that fit a 0.7 waist–hip ratio as most attractive. Physiologists have shown that women with hourglass figures are more fertile than other women due to higher levels of certain female hormones, a fact that may subconsciously condition males choosing mates.
In Japan, the term "yamato nadeshiko", meaning the "personification of an idealized Japanese woman", or "the epitome of pure, feminine beauty"., is often used referring to a girl or shy young woman and, in a contemporary context, nostalgically of women with "good" traits which are perceived as being increasingly rare.
In 1876, Horatio Alger, Jr. proclaimed women of Cape Cod as the ideal feminine beauty. Specifically, because they were blond, tan, physically fit and educated.
In 1959, the Barbie fashion doll was introduced as a feminine ideal of modern aesthetic beauty by Mattel, in the United States. While there are those who hold Barbie to be the feminine ideal, Barbie's anatomical proportions are exaggerated and do not, for example, meet the aesthetic proportions that men in Indo-European cultures find most attractive. This icon of femininity, in the views of some, attracts a wide international audience of women and men. She has been used as a teaching tool for femininity. One of the most common criticisms of Barbie is that she promotes an unrealistic and unattainable idea of feminine beauty and fits the weight criteria for anorexia.
In China, female consumers rejected Barbie's ideal of feminine beauty and its image for women as extraneously sexy. In Iran, the feminine ideals and independent lifestyle represented by Barbie are considered a threat to Iranian values, "more harmful than an American missile." In Saudi Arabia Barbie was banned for the same reason, by the religious police as a moral threat to Islam.
Communist revolutionaries initially depicted idealized womanhood as muscular, plainly-dressed and strong, with good female communists shown as undertaking hard manual labour, using guns, and eschewing self-adornment. Contemporary Western journalists portrayed communist states as the enemy of traditional femininity, describing women in communist countries as "mannish" perversions. In revolutionary China in the 1950s, Western journalists described Chinese women as "drably dressed, usually in sloppy slacks and without makeup, hair waves or nail polish" and wrote that "Glamour was communism's earliest victim in China. You can stroll the cheerless streets of Peking all day, without seeing a skirt or a sign of lipstick; without thrilling to the faintest breath of perfume; without hearing the click of high heels, or catching the glint of legs sheathed in nylon." In communist Poland, changing from high heels to worker's boots symbolized women's shift from the bourgeois to socialism."
Later the initial state portrayals of idealized femininity as strong and hard-working began to also include more traditional notions such as gentleness, caring and nurturing behaviour, softness, modesty and moral virtue, requiring good Communist women to become "superheroes who excelled in all spheres," including working at jobs not traditionally regarded as feminine in nature.
Communist ideology explicitly rejected some aspects of traditional femininity that it viewed as bourgeois and consumerist, such as helplessness, idleness and self-adornment. In Communist countries, some women resented not having access to cosmetics and fashionable clothes. In her 1993 book of essays How We Survived Communism & Even Laughed, Croatian journalist and novelist Slavenka Drakulic wrote about "a complaint I heard repeatedly from women in Warsaw, Budapest, Prague, Sofia, East Berlin: 'Look at us - we don't even look like women. There are no deodorants, perfumes, sometimes even no soap or toothpaste. There is no fine underwear, no pantyhose, no nice lingerie" and "Sometimes I think the real Iron Curtain is made of silky, shiny images of pretty women dressed in wonderful clothes, of pictures from women's magazines ... The images that cross the borders in magazines, movies or videos are therefore more dangerous than any secret weapon, because they make one desire that 'otherness' badly enough to risk one's life trying to escape."
As Communist countries such as Romania and the Soviet Union began to liberalize, their official media began representing women in more conventionally-feminine ways compared with the "rotund farm workers and plain-Jane factory hand" depictions they had previously been publishing. As perfumes, cosmetics and fashionable clothing and footwear became available to ordinary women in the Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia and Hungary, they began to be presented not as bourgeois frivolities but as signs of socialist modernity. In China, with the economic liberation started by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s, the state stopped discouraging women from expressing conventional femininity, and gender stereotypes and commercialized sexualization of women which had been suppressed under Communist ideology began to rise.
Gender stereotypes influence traditional feminine occupations, resulting in microaggression toward women who break traditional gender roles. These stereotypes include that women have a caring nature, have skill at household-related work, have greater manual dexterity than men, are more honest than men, and have a more attractive physical appearance. Occupational roles associated with these stereotypes include: midwife, teacher, accountant, data entry clerk, cashier, salesperson, receptionist, housekeeper, cook, maid, social worker, and nurse. Occupational segregation maintains gender inequality and gender pay gap.
These associations are now considered outdated in much of the world, although certain specializations, such as surgery and emergency medicine, are dominated by a masculine culture and have a higher salary.
Leadership is associated with masculinity in Western cultures, and women are perceived less favorably as potential leaders. However, some people have argued that the "feminine"-style leadership, which is associated with leadership that focuses on help and cooperation, is advantageous over "masculine" leadership, which is associated with focusing on tasks and control. Female leaders are more often described by Western media using characteristics associated with femininity, such as emotion. Role Congruity Theory, which proposes that people tend to view deviations from expected gender roles negatively, is sometimes used to explain why people have a tendency to evaluate behavior that fulfills the prescriptions of a leader role less favorably when it is enacted by a woman.
It has been argued that primary sex characteristics of men and women, such as the ability to bear children, caused a historical sexual division of labor and gender stereotypes evolved culturally to perpetuate this division.
The practice of bearing children tends to interrupt the continuity of employment. According to human capital theory, this retracts from the female investment in higher education and employment training. Richard Anker of the International Labour Office argues human capital theory does not explain the sexual division of labor because many occupations tied to feminine roles, such as administrative assistance, require more knowledge, experience, and continuity of employment than unskilled masculinized occupations, such as truck driving. Anker argues the feminization of certain occupations limits employment options for women.
Role Congruity Theory, which proposes that people tend to view deviations from expected roles negatively, supports the empirical evidence that gender discrimination exists in areas traditionally associated with one gender or the other.
Shamanism may have originated as early as the paleolithic period, predating all organized religions. Archeological finds have suggested that the earliest known shamans were female, and contemporary shamanic roles such as the Korean mudang continue to be filled primarily by women.
In Hindu traditions, Devi is the female aspect of the divine. Shakti is the divine feminine creative power, the sacred force that moves through the entire universe and the agent of change. She is the female counterpart without whom the male aspect, which represents consciousness or discrimination, remains impotent and void. As the female manifestation of the supreme lord, she is also called Prakriti, the basic nature of intelligence by which the Universe exists and functions. In Hinduism, the universal creative force Yoni is feminine, with inspiration being the life force of creation.
In Taoism, the concept of yin represents the primary force of the female half of yin and yang. The yin is also present, to a smaller proportion, in the male half. The yin can be characterized as slow, soft, yielding, diffuse, cold, wet, and passive.
Although the Judeo-Christian God is typically described in masculine terms-such as father, king, warrior-many theologians argue that this is not meant to indicate the gender of God. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, God "is neither man nor woman: he is God." Several recent writers, such as Sally McFague, have explored the idea of "God as mother", examining the feminine qualities attributed to God. For example, in the Book of Isaiah, God is compared to a mother comforting her child, while in the Book of Deuteronomy, God is said to have given birth to Israel.
The Book of Genesis describes divine creation of the world out of nothing or ex nihilo. In Wisdom literature and in the wisdom tradition, wisdom is described as feminine. In many books of the Old Testament, including Wisdom and Sirach, wisdom is personified and called "she." According to David Winston, because wisdom is God's "creative agent," she must be intimately identified with God.
The Wisdom of God is feminine in Hebrew: Chokhmah, in Arabic: Hikmah, in Greek: Sophia, and in Latin: Sapientia. In Hebrew, both Shekhinah (the Holy Spirit and divine presence of God) and Ruach HaKodesh (divine inspiration) are feminine.
In the Jewish Kabbalah, Chokhmah (wisdom and intuition) is the force in the creative process that God used to create the heavens and the earth. Binah (understanding and perception) is the great mother, the feminine receiver of energy and giver of form. Binah receives the intuitive insight from Chokhmah and dwells on it in the same way that a mother receives the seed from the father, and keeps it within her until it's time to give birth. The intuition, once received and contemplated with perception, leads to the Creation of the Universe.
Men who behave in ways associated with femininity may be called effeminate. Men who wear clothing associated with femininity are cross-dressers. A drag queen is a man who wears women's clothing and behaves in an extremely feminine manner for entertainment purposes.
Femininity is not necessarily related to a man's sexuality, though male femininity is often associated with homosexuality in modern Western culture.
The terms femiphobia, effemimania, effeminophobia, and sissyphobia are sometimes used to describe a generally negative attitude displayed in many societies towards feminine men.
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Feminist philosophers such as Judith Butler and Simone de Beauvoir contend that femininity and masculinity are created through repeated performances of gender; these performances reproduce and define the traditional categories of sex and/or gender.
Many second-wave feminists reject what they regard as constricting standards of female beauty, created for the subordination and objectifying of women and self-perpetuated by reproductive competition and women's own aesthetics.
Others, such as lipstick feminists and some other third-wave feminists, argue that feminism shouldn't devalue feminine culture and identity, and that symbols of feminine identity such as make-up, suggestive clothing and having a sexual allure can be valid and empowering personal choices for both sexes.
In her 2007 book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, American transsexual writer and biologist Julia Serano notes that masculine girls and women face much less social disapproval than feminine boys and men, which she attributes to sexism. Serano argues that women wanting to be like men is consistent with the idea that maleness is more valued in contemporary culture than femaleness, whereas men being willing to give up masculinity in favour of femininity directly threatens the notion of male superiority as well as the idea that men and women should be opposites. To support her thesis, Serano cites the far greater public scrutiny and disdain experienced by male-to-female cross-dressers compared with that faced by women who dress in masculine clothes, as well as research showing that parents are likelier to respond negatively to sons who like Barbie dolls and ballet or wear nail polish, than they are to daughters exhibiting comparably masculine behaviours.
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