Femininity

I have attempted before to write an article about femininity only to end up throwing it out in frustration with how inarticulate my thoughts were and how obvious my lack of logic was. I’ve seen other women talking about femininity and found that the discussion either excluded tomboys or excluded girly-girls. There has to be a way to define femininity without saying pink-ruffled-princess (please kill me now) or without making those ladies who love pink feel like dumb blondes. There has to be something further back, more big picture, more general that can embrace both the ballerina and the horse girl.

By Jove, I think I found it. (Also, this isn’t original to me. I am spring-boarding off and exploring things I’ve been reading in the Summa Domestica by Leila Lawler.) The one thing that gathers all types of women at all stages of our lives is Motherhood.

But wait, I hear you say, you don’t have children, and lots of women don’t have children, and all children, except one, grow up. How can it be motherhood?

Motherhood is growing, nurturing, seeing individuality, and remembering.

Think about it. What if we women were made, designed, and called to be mothers.

Don’t make that super narrow: great, I’m just regulated to diapers for the rest of my life. Wonderful. Expand your mind to being a mother. Children or not, young or old, married or unmarried, we women are called to be mothers. What exactly does that mean?

First, we’re the growers of life. We grow life inside our bodies. Our entire physical being is geared towards growing lives. Everything from how our bodies are shaped to how they work to our cycles is all about the opportunity to grow another little soul. Now look at what women tend to love: plants and animals. From a 1950’s housewife with puppies and plants to a farm girl helping a cow give birth and driving a tractor, we’re all about life, about growing things. Women with many kids still have gardens and houseplants. Women with no kids have…gardens and houseplants. It’s like we can’t stop ourselves from gathering little lives around us and growing them.

Second, we’re the nurturers. Once we have the little living thing, we tenderly tend it. We women are generally nurturers no matter where we fall on the extremes of tomboys to princesses. I always laugh with delight when a story depicts a woman stopping a fight by feeding the men. Or when she fixes her attitude and the attitude of others by cleaning. We’re the feeders. We know that so much of life is better off with a drink, snack, and cozy nap. We know our families are better off mentally and emotionally if things are clean. We’re the nurturers, which works hand in hand with growing. You don’t buy a plant and just leave them in the car, you repot them, water them, feed them, and find them a place to live. You nurture them. Nurturing is supplying, educating, and fostering growth. Real solid nurturing requires calm and observation. We can’t nurture if we’re frantic. We can’t nurture if we’re not paying attention.

Third, we see individuality. This is a side of femininity that I’m still mulling over. It is the idea that our love of growing things and our ability to gently nurture that growth is a willingness to allow that thing to be what it is. Yes, women tend to be cultivators. We like our pretty controlled gardens and we all know sometimes a good pruning is necessary, but women tend to allow things to be what they are. We don’t tend to force things to bend to our wills. We’re not the conquerors on a grand scale. (We will conquer the bugs destroying our gardens, but only so our tomato plants can grow.) We are good at embracing individuality. We see our husbands, our children, our kitchens, and our plants and we tend and nurture them so that they grow to be the best of themselves.

Fourth, we’re the rememberers. If we are the growers of life, nurturing that life, and seeing individuality, that means that we often let the things we’ve grown go. We nurture our children into adults and let them go out into the world. We tend our husbands so that they can go out in the world and conquer and provide. We growers do a lot of letting go. It is our husbands, sons, fathers, uncles, nephews, and cousins who go off to war. We are the holders, the ones who remember. We are also the ones who remember which plant likes water, which food the birds like, and which kid walked when. We may have to open our hands and watch the things we love spread their wings or even die, but we remember. We hold onto the generational memories. We hold onto the beloved recipes, the quilts, the stories.

Now for a bit of nuance. This doesn’t mean men never grow things. I’m not here to talk about masculinity. I’m digging down into women: Stepford wives to tomboys, princesses to black belts, ballerinas to cowgirls.  We are the bearers of life: growing, nurturing, seeing individuality, and remembering. We do this differently than men with plants, animals, and children. That inherent difference must be seen and embraced! We aren’t men and that is a gift! We should view it as such.

We also have to see that women will come at this in a wide variety of expressions. How we grow, nurture, see individuality, and remember will be different. Some of us may favor a controlled garden of lines and hedges, while others seek the ramshackle cottage garden of overgrown chaos.

Women tend to express themselves with a gentle softness that allows broken, young, and vulnerable things in close to her, even if she’s got a sharp wit or a cut and dry attitude. There’s still a sheltering/growing aspect to all women.

Regardless of our state, we are the dwellings. We are the mothers.

Maids, don’t allow the world to take this from you. Get your fingers in the dirt and start growing things. Think of yourself as a mother even if you don’t have children. The world needs more growing, nurturing, seeing, and remembering. Let kids into your life. Buy plants. Get a bird feeder. The world is going to push you away from mothering. It’s going to tell you that men are toxic, but that you have to be one. It’s going to tell you that women are mighty and here, take some drugs to shut down your body’s natural growing properties. The world says women are the future, but hates that we are the growers and nurturers, and does everything it can to tell us to stop growing and nurturing things, stop seeing and remembering. Being a tomboy doesn’t mean you’re trans or you’re unfeminine. Tomboys make great mothers and are generally very gentle with small things. They just don’t want to wear pink and stay clean. Girly girls, who like makeup, and froo-froo things are lovers of beauty and have wonderful cozy homes. They’re graceful and generous. The world tells you to be a woman by being a man. What they don’t tell you is that if you do this at some point you’ll wake up and realize nothing you’ve accomplished matters. That you’re just an ugly old hag no one wants to be around. They tell you to have your career and fun now but they don’t tell you that when you start trying to have a family, no man wants you and it’s much harder to have children. Embrace your individual expression of your innate motherhood even now. Choose to bypass the bitter rebellion against how God made you and trust that He is good and thus these are good gifts to be used and treasured.

Matrons, we need to not only look to ourselves but to the next generation. There are as many different expressions of femininity as there are souls made by God, but spend 5 minutes with a girl and they’ll be cooing or tending something. Encourage this in your daughters and yourself. The best way to do this is to slow down. You’re not a man. Stop acting like one. Slow down and love your day. Your home. Your plants. Your pets. Your food. Your husband. And your children. Embrace the pain of being the rememberer. Live a life of tending and rejoice in being feminine, whether that’s trees and adventure stories or pink tutus and cozy mysteries.

Crones, wear your wrinkles and graying hair with delight. Don’t become hard and bitter. Don’t be the evil old witch, but the round grandmother who everyone adores. Lead the way so we can follow. Show us the scars of a life spent tending, growing, nurturing, seeing, and remembering. These things are soft but also unbelievably painful. They will rip and bleed us because growing things die and tended things leave. That’s both our blessing and our curse. We nurture things that don’t last and must hold them loosely in our hands. That’s nurturing. To hold tightly is to murder but to hold gently is to lose. Let us see your battles so we remember to stay in the fight, to guard and garden our souls, so we feel seen.

Being feminine requires great courage and wisdom and love. Stay in the fight, sisters. We must not allow the world to tell us motherhood is only changing diapers and thus boring, unimportant, and something we can do without. Motherhood is who and what we are down to our very bones. We must not allow the world to take true femininity away from us.