Why Do We Need To Embrace Femininity?

Although published in 2016, when you used to google the term 'Femininity' it would read "she celebrates her femininity by wearing make-up and high heels"...

Although this was found 5 years ago on Wikipedia it is sadly still the way a lot of people view the idea of femininity. It's almost as if the only way someone can embrace their sense of femininity is through old fashioned views and materialistic ways. Whether a woman wears high heels, trainers or welly boots makes no difference to her validation of feeling femininity. As the ELLE article "Changing The Definition Of Femininity" states "The word 'femininity' means something different to all women". This is a point I want to explore within my film and research.

In terms of the brand Jason Wu, who heavily focus on uplifting women, celebrating their beauty and femininity, I think it would be a great idea for them to put out a campaign/ film focuses on redefining and reclaiming femininity in the way we want to. This is important for women as our hobbies/ lifestyles/ interests are commonly seen as weaker and less important in popular media and everyday life compared to more masculine things. Such as the notion of all women love shopping and that is somehow a weakness, same goes for gossiping and beauty. Not only is this harmful to women, but also to men. We, as a society, need to embrace both femininity and masculinity in ways that make ourselves comfortable and feel most empowered.

I watched a very interesting Ted Talk on Youtube by Michelle Miller where she discusses why it's so important we restore femininity. She opens with asking what if femininity has nothing to do with being a woman?, which through my research I'm realising more and more. Michelle makes a very interesting point that femininity is experience orientated however masculinity is results orientated, all the words we associate with femininity (beauty, compassion...) only matter if we're invested in the experience of a situation. The words we associate with masculinity (focus, competition...) only matter if our priority is on the results of a situation. She uses a good analogy based on drinking coffee - if I drink my coffee for the flavour and taste that's a very feminine way of enjoying coffee however, if I drink my coffee for the caffeine to help me get on with my day, that's a very masculine way to drink coffee. In essence, we should all enjoy coffee how we want to regardless of gender or stereotypes, why is there a shame in enjoying drinking it for the taste?

Michelle discusses her success in working in finance and how everything in her life had been very results orientated, the success of her job, money, status and finding a husband. She took a creative writing class which gave her that experience orientation that she had been craving yet neglecting. In this way, she was able to come back in touch with her femininity. Femininity isn't just about suddenly putting lipstick on and feeling good, it's about finding those small things that embraces that experience you crave. As femininity is treated in second place to masculinity, it important we recognise this and restore it.

We Need To Restore Femininity - Michelle Miller

Sources:

ELLE. (2016). Changing The Definition Of Femininity. [Online]. Available from: https://www.elle.com/uk/life-and-culture/culture/articles/a32708/changing-the-definition-of-femininity/ [Accessed 7/11/21]

TEDX talks. (2016). We need to restore femininity | Michelle Miller. [Online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PFYthpdEIU [Accessed 8/11/21]