why be feminine?

A friend told me he had a question about femininity, and he asked me:

why does it matter to you? that you need to be feminine that is? OR better phrased why do you want to be feminine?

I hadn't thought to ask, but it was something I needed to think about. Here's what I've got:

Short answer: because I think too much. I want to know everything about people, and the differences between men and women fascinate me.

I felt like I was too much and not enough at the same time. I dressed sloppily but spent far too much time getting ready. I was willing to be helpful but not physically strong enough be any help. I hated shopping but owned too many things. I talked too much but didn't speak up when I ought. I cared too much about how my room looked but it was too messy. I couldn't merely balance on the fence because I'd already fallen off both sides of the fence. I couldn't keep up with my guy-friends because I was a woman, and I couldn't keep up with my girl-friends because I was trying to keep up with my guy-friends.

Short answer: being a guy wasn't working, and I didn't want to be a failure.

Last year, new to Hillsdale, I was a sucker for chivalry: open doors, carry books, anything. Chivalry said two things to me:

1. "I'm strong enough to keep you safe if something were to happen, and I care about you enough that I'm willing to."
2. "You're a woman, not a man, and that's exactly as it should be."

People at Hillsdale understood that men and women are different, and that it wasn't a better/worse difference. Here, I could find an answer.

I decided to stop trying to be a man, but I needed some sort of direction, somewhere to go. I was lost. Nobody writes anything like If for women. Sure, there's Proverbs 31, but I'm not a wife and probably won't be one for a while. And there has to be something to "woman" other than "wife"--otherwise maidens and widows and nuns are worthless.

But I didn't want to knit, shop, wear makeup, sew, wear skirts, fuss about how I look, be "cute," jabber on the phone, etc.

And I didn't want to give up what I love: football, climbing, strength, euchre, outside, tennis shoes, basketball, Tapico, etc. I spit, occasionally. And I want to fight.

Short answer: could I do that and still be a woman?

I was at a talk one Thursday where the (male) speaker said that what women want most from men is affirmation, and everyone nodded in blind agreement. I fumed. Why must "woman" always take a dative?

But it was affirmation I was seeking. I needed someone to tell me: it's a good thing that you want to be beautiful; you are beautiful. I needed someone to come find me and convince me I didn't need to hide. I needed to relax and think of other people instead of analyzing the masculinity or femininity of my actions. I needed to stop trying to prove that I was as fast and strong and ignorant of physical pain and competent at throwing a football as any of my guy-friends (because, as much as I tried, I wasn't).

Short answer: I was trying and failing at being a man. And of course I should fail at this: I'm a woman. But I fail at knitting and shopping as well. Must failure at knitting and shopping necessarily be directly proportional to failure as a woman?

Short answer: Because I didn't want to knit and I didn't want to fail.

In addition to this, I kept hearing that abortion is an offense against women. But why? That question was not satisfactorily answered. Women are nurturers and lifegivers--but I wanted to pummel someone. I wanted to throw someone behind me and fight for them. Women are mothers--but I'm not pregnant and don't plan on giving birth until at least nine months after I marry.

I don't understand women, or anyway, didn't. I'm getting better at it. It was (and still is, though to a lesser extent) incomprehensible to me how people could enjoy shoe shopping. And I looked down my nose at women who went climbing and played football, because look at them, they're just trying to be masculine. For some reason, I felt more compelled to out-strength, out-throw, out-virtus, out-dignitas these "masculine" women than to keep up with men. (Pride, anyone?)

Short answer: I needed to learn how to be feminine so that I might be humble.

I remember once catching myself in the middle of a Rosary, realizing I was praying to a woman, and I sobbed.

Short answer: I needed to learn how to be feminine so that I might be holy.

I'd pretty much given up on having close woman-friends because most women didn't enjoy anything I was interested in, and if they did, I felt threatened.

Short answer: I need woman-friends. Some things you just can't talk about in mixed company.

Here's an analogy I've often found helpful: a woman is like an ocean, beautiful and terrifying. And a man can admire from a distance, wade in a bit, sit on the dock with his feet in the water--but we want to be pursued. We want men to dive in and explore, not sit with his feet awkwardly in the water, afraid to jump in because he sees shark fins wandering about.

Here's what this means practically: men complain all the time that women hint at what they want instead of telling directly; women complain equally (though probably with far more words) that men don't pick up on their hints. Women don't really want men to read our minds; we want men to scour our facebook profiles, remember our passing comments, pay attention to us, and at the very least talk to our woman-friends to find out what we want. Trying and not getting it quite right is far better than not trying at all.

But fallen women forget about God and expect fallen men to do this perfectly. Therein lies the problem.

Some oceans know their beauty but fear that they won't be pursued, so they give up the chase and let the reward come too easily--and are then called s--ts and w----s and b----es.

Some oceans don't know their beauty and are afraid that pursuit will end in disappointment. They hide their beauty by keeping away from everyone or dressing sloppily or letting the sharks breed out of control. They put up defenses so they cannot be pursued.

Some oceans know they are loved totally and completely by God. They know he will always pursue them and that they are beautiful and that his pursuit will be well-rewarded. These oceans are fallen women, too--we all are, except for her--and they can enjoy compliments and pursuit from fallen men, but they don't rely on fallen men. They rely on God, who actually can and does follow through all the time.

Knitting and shoe shopping and jabbering on the phone are irrelevant to femininity. And that was my most important discovery.

why does it matter to you? that you need to be feminine that is? OR better phrased why do you want to be feminine?

Short answer: permission and freedom to be who I am.

Thanks for asking.