Growing up as a girl has been one of the most interesting experiences of my life so far. I’ve had some beautiful moments of girlhood that I wouldn’t trade for the world, but some moments still give me the ick when I think about them. To start, whether it’s being catcalled while shopping, stared at, or being followed somewhere, there’s always at least one person giving an unsolicited judgment on your appearance, cadence, or simply your existence as a woman/girl, no matter where I went. A lot of those judgements were targeted directly at my femininity, questioning and shunning the way I walked, dressed, behaved, or talked in a way that wasn’t considered ‘ladylike’ or ‘womanly ‘. Because I didn’t conform to this traditional, rigid, and destructive gender expectation that stems from toxic femininity, I was judged or looked down upon amongst people who held the ideal that women always had to be soft, passive, and altruistic – the ideal woman.
It has been consistently proven that the bar for being the “ideal woman” moves farther and farther away until eventually you realize that the bar was never meant to be reached. What I mean when I mention ‘the bar’ is the representation of the so-called ‘perfect’ amount of femininity a woman should exhibit, or what others would determine “being enough of a woman” to be, that society has depicted in media and societal standards countless times. When reading “Throwing Like A Girl”, I expressed a strong sigh of relief when I saw Young’s perspective on femininity, as unfortunately even in today’s society, there is still an unrealistic standard for women to be “feminine enough” and reach that bar. They stated, “it is not necessary that any women be “feminine”—that is, it is not necessary that there be distinctive structures and behavior typical of the situation of women.” This mention of how no woman needs to be feminine made me feel seen and heard. As the structure of femininity is constructed upon expectations that are both arbitrary and ever-changing, I found comfort in Young’s assertion that femininity is not an essential quality for women. The pressure to fit into a specific mold, whether it’s about how we move, speak, or present ourselves, becomes exhausting and, frankly, impossible to satisfy. Young’s essay reminded me that we don’t have to accept these limitations or internalize the criticism that comes when we refuse to conform. We can aim to achieve our own personal, healthy standards that don’t exist at the cost of our authenticity and mental health.
I do think it’s important to note that so much of girlhood gets tainted by the way we’ve been socialized to view and experience femininity. That despite being something half of the world goes through give-or-take its often treated as something to be attacked or feared, as in many ways the experience is frightening but only due to outside forces. It can strangely also mess up your own perception of self whether you experience these shortcomings or not. I for one don’t recall any time in my child or teen years where I was catcalled or received attention from boys/men, which is a good thing and I count myself lucky to have never experienced this kind of harassment, but it weirdly made me feel like I was less of a woman because this was something I never experienced. Like attention (wanted or otherwise) from men was, in a social sense, was a part of being a woman that I missed out on, and that I was somehow feel unattractive or not living up to the image I was supposed to be. It’s pretty messed up how we socialize femininity in a way that harm coming to you is expected, otherwise you aren’t truly “feminine” enough.
Moving from lived experience into theory this smoothly isn’t easy to pull off. The catcalling and staring thing tracks with classical conditioning honestly, your nervous system starts pattern-matching “existing in public” to threat after enough repeated experience. Not paranoia, just a trauma response with good aim. And I love that you named women policing other women’s femininity too, thats classic in-group policing, where a group polices its own members the hardest because everyone gets judged by the “worst one.”
The young quote is a really great anchor too, “It is not necessary that any women be feminine.” it basically strips out any hidden premise that femininity = womanhood, which is what makes the whole shame cycle collapse once you see it.