What is femininity?

[Mothra]

A couple of recent posts, Why So Few Women Anarchists, and Bruce Jenner Needs Counseling, Not Support, got me thinking about what femininity is. In addition, I was recently criticized as not being feminine enough, so I have a personal curiosity about this as well.

 

Is femininity a superficial thing? Is femininity an obsession with aesthetics - clothes, shoes, makeup? Can a woman eschew such trivialities and still somehow be feminine? Why is it that some men think a woman is super sexy if she is doing something traditionally done by men, such as fixing a car or doing construction work?

 

There seem to be many stories about transwomen wearing their mothers high heels or preferring pink and glitter as little boys, and these things are given as indications that they identify with the female gender. However, there is nothing innately feminine about these things. High heels were once worn by men and pink was once the color given to baby boys, as it was a muted version of red, a very masculine color. If the notion of femininity changes over time or with different cultures, it makes me skeptical of changing/mutilating one's body to conform with societies views. Is it okay to both have a penis and like high heels, glitter, and pink? I would say yes, you should be who you are and do what makes you happy. But if society as a whole says no, should one have to remove their penis and grow breasts to be okay with liking the the things you like?

 

Many definitions of femininity I have come across do include non-superficial things like being sensitive, empathetic, generous, gentle, along with things I consider to be quite negative, such as being childlike, a follower, and dependent. Masculine traits on the other hand include things like being analytical, competitive, assertive, self-reliant, intellectual, and being willing to take a stand. I think that libertarians/anarcho-capitalists in general have more of these so-called masculine traits.

 

I personally am hesitant to see gender as so black and white, with femininity being defined as basically weak, stupid, and overly emotional. I dislike having the notion of gender at all. Why can't we just be people and not have to pick a culturally-defined side. Can we not pick and choose what we are no matter what side of the spectrum it happens to be from? Can we not be empathic, gentle, generous and also be intellectually curious, skeptical, and independent?

 

I would love to get some ideas of what a libertarian group of people think about femininity, since I think we in general have a great appreciation for what others generally define as masculine traits.

[Mister Mister]

 You should call Stef with this question.  I'll take a stab at it.  First of all, as far as your comments about gender, I feel similarly.  I really think that gender is a weird idea, not really helpful.  Biologically there is something called sex, which is where we must start if we want to see these things clearly I think.  But gender is such a nebulous and politically charged idea I don't really know if it should be part of philosophy.  What we can say, empirically, is that all sexed animals come from two kinds of sex cells: a sperm and an egg.  Sperms come from males and are made in abundance, eggs come from females, which are more rare.  In mammals, females also carry the fertilized egg to term, and nurse the baby.  Because of these differences in reproductive roles, males and females in general tend to have different physical qualities and behaviors.

A lot of the things you mentioned, which are associated with femininity, are really just   Femininity I should think, would have to do fundamentally with motherhood.  As a corollary, femininity has a lot to do with sexual selection.  In social experiments, where a reasonably attractive man and reasonably attractive woman ask strangers to have sex with them, women tend to get about a 50% yes, and men 100% no.  There are obvious biological reasons for this; females bear the burden of pregnancy and nursing, while males do not, and do not genetically benefit from promiscuity, while males do.  So you see this across the animal kingdom, and especially in birds and mammals, where most males are willing to put their dick in anything, but most females are very selective, and try only to offer themselves to the "best" males, according to certain standards.  They also tend to invest more than males into childcare, especially early childcare, as the nursing process is associated with a bonding between the female and her children that often isn't there for the male.  Humans are actually unique to the extent that men participate in childcare, but that's another topic.

Because of this, the real power of femininity is to influence the values and standards of the society in two fundamental ways, broadcasting to the males, what qualities will "get them laid", and passing on values to the children.  At the same time, their weakness is that, because they are somewhat vulnerable and incapacitated by pregnancy and nursing, they require a social network for support, which often means conformity to cultural delusions (while males major weakness is that finding someone who will fuck you is not so easy as it is for women, therefore procreation is not so certain).   The bizarre and tragic thing about modern feminism is how it demeans both of these things: discernment with regards to sex is supposed to be some kind of slut-shaming rigid puritan standard imposed on them by traditional patriarchy (even though lots of guys like to fuck sluts...???) and child-rearing is slavery imposed by men so they can do all the fun stuff like run governments and businesses...and work in factories and mines and die in wars.

The last thing I'll say, is that all of these things are biological aspects of femininity, not necessarily "binding" on all women; just because you have a vagina, doesn't mean this has to define you.  The point isn't to divide all people into two categories and say "this is how you must act" (maybe this is what you mean by not seeing gender as black and white?), but at the same time we have to be honest that biological sex IS a binary (with the exception of ovary + testes intersex which is an extreeeeemely rare medical anomaly).  Being a woman may only be part of who you are, maybe not an even very important part.  Maybe you are also a thinker, a businessperson, an artist, and so on.  But your femininity was developed by evolution to produce children, and there are certain things that go along with that.  We don't want to be restricted by mindless traditions, but we also don't want to delude ourselves into thinking we are not restricted by reality.  I hope some of that helps.  Great question.

[Frosty]

Femininity and masculinity are just behavioural traits which are commonly associated with sex, they're common to the sexes because the biology of males and females is different under normal circumstance, there are some outliers but this is really due to abnormal biological development.

 

I've read a lot about human biological development spurred on in large part because of the thread on transgenderism on the FDR forums and being educated on how foetal development works and how you get the broad range of different people with varying degrees of sex, gender and sexuality and this ties naturally into masculinity and femininity because they're related to gender.

 

During early development we start off the same, pretty much on the path to develop bioloigically as female, however the introduction of testosterone is what triggers a foetus to develop differently and that's how we get males. Testosterone exposure changes physical characteristics such how genitals form, but it also makes changes to brain development which is where we get our sense of gender from (gender being distinct from sex) and it's largely this sense of gender which accounts for masculine and feminine traits.

 

Testosterone makes males aggressive both in terms of competing with each other for resources but also sexual partners, it accounts for higher sex drive. It's also really strongly correlated with interest in systems vs people, for example female new born babies will tend to stare at faces as a preference over objects/systems and they'll stare for longer, males tend to prefer objects/systems and again stare for longer, this is all before there's any social influence. Testosterone is also strongly correlated with interest in STEM fields in later life, and not just for males, if a female has an over exposure to testosterone during foetal development then she'll be much more likely to be interest in STEM in later life, long term studies following babies into adulthood have confirmed this.

 

I wouldn't say that these things are inherently superficial, but they can manifest in ways which are superficial for sure, it's a fairly feminine trait to be obsessed with shoes for example. But these traits exist for evolutionary reasons, we stood a better chance at passing on or genes if we behaved in certain ways, in modern society where we suddenly have this different environment full of things we didn't evolve to deal with these existing traits cause odd behaviours. Women needed to be more nurturing to take care of children while men hunted and protected, so it shouldn't be strange to see a preference for women to like to work with children (childcare, teaching) and in places that are based around nurturing such as nursing and care work, and that's exactly what we see.

 

Regarding women being sexy when doing traditionally male things, I think it's just novelty, I got stuck in this trap of really expecting to find a woman who is interested in the same kind of intellectual things I am and that making for the jackpot girlfriend that ticks all the boxes, someone I could share hobbies with but in reality this is just the hunt for the male-brained, tomboy-like female which is a fairly rare thing because it's an abnormality, evolutionarily speaking. I gave up on that a long time ago.

 

Gender certainly isn't black or white, it's a scale or a range of behaviours, where you sit on that scale is largely defined by testosterone exposure during development at certain specific weeks, it's typical for male to be more masculine because during normal or average development the levels of testosterone stay the same throughout pregnancy, so its typical for males to be masculine and females to be feminine, but levels can fluctuate over time, and for males if it drops during the time your sense of gender is developing then you may be very feminine in fact you may develop a brain structure which is closer to that of a female and this is what leads to gender/body dysphoria and trans people. The same kind of fluctuations at different weeks during development also are believed to account for sexuality and that's how we get gay/straight orientation. The desire for trans people to transition and have surgery is something that was speculated would solve the problem but modern medical science has more or less concluded that it doesn't fix the underlying psychological issues, it seems like transitioning by taking hormones may be more successful and leads to more mental stability, I know that surgery is becoming more frowned upon, Johns Hopkins who pioneered the surgery now don't do it any more.

 

Anarcho capitalists and libertarians are very intellectually reasoned positions from simpler principles, and men have a naturally greater interest in these kinds of pursuits so it just makes sense that anything intellectual like that is much more male orientated, i'd like to clarify that it's not because women aren't as capable, it's simply to do with interest. It's not specific to libertarians and ancaps either, it's really broad, you'll find a way higher male attendance at sceptical thinkers groups, atheist groups, in all of STEM fields, they're all sausagefests.

 

Conversely it seems like that our modern move towards a much more leftist and socialist world is in large part due to women entering into the voting pool. Size of government and government spending on socialist programs all explode after women start voting en masse, side by side the graphs are of when women votes started and how the metrics of government changed. And that shouldn't be too surprising, to be femimine is to be more empathetic and have preference for safey nets in direct opposition to the testosterone driven competition and win/loss that men tend to prefer.

 

I also saw this image the other day which I thought was telling:

 

 

I think the good news is that we're no longer bound by our natural instincts, we're influenced by them but we can intellectually understand that they're influences and make decisions that supersede them. The bad news (I guess?) is that in terms of education and job selection/preference, is that the more freedom we have to choose the more people align with their natural instincts/desires, there's more gender bias in jobs in the freer countries and less bias in less free countries.

 

Links to an excellent documentary on gender studies/science (has english subs), I highly recommend for a more sane and scientific look at gender:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/1vuho8/the_documentary_that_made_scandinavians_cut_all/

 

And the most helpful science i've seen as posted in the trans thread on FDR forums:

 

http://media01.commpartners.com/AMA/sexual_identity_jan_2011/index.html

[Mister Mister]

 

I don't understand this picture.

[Donnadogsoth]

A couple of recent posts, Why So Few Women Anarchists, and Bruce Jenner Needs Counseling, Not Support, got me thinking about what femininity is. In addition, I was recently criticized as not being feminine enough, so I have a personal curiosity about this as well.

 

Is femininity a superficial thing? Is femininity an obsession with aesthetics - clothes, shoes, makeup? Can a woman be eschew such trivialities and still somehow be feminine? Why is it that some men think a woman is super sexy if she is doing something traditionally done by men, such as fixing a car or doing construction work?

 

There seem to be many stories about transwomen wearing their mothers high heels or preferring pink and glitter as little boys, and these things are given as indications that they identify with the female gender. However, there is nothing innately feminine about these things. High heels were once worn by men and pink was once the color given to baby boys, as it was a muted version of red, a very masculine color. If the notion of femininity changes over time or with different cultures, it makes me skeptical of changing/mutilating one's body to conform with societies views. Is it okay to both have a penis and like high heels, glitter, and pink? I would say yes, you should be who you are and do what makes you happy. But if society as a whole says no, should one have to remove their penis and grow breasts to be okay with liking the the things you like?

 

Many definitions of femininity I have come across do include non-superficial things like being sensitive, empathetic, generous, gentle, along with things I consider to be quite negative, such as being childlike, a follower, and dependent. Masculine traits on the other hand include things like being analytical, competitive, assertive, self-reliant, intellectual, and being willing to take a stand. I think that libertarians/anarcho-capitalists in general have more of these so-called masculine traits.

 

I personally am hesitant to see gender as so black and white, with femininity being defined as basically weak, stupid, and overly emotional. I dislike having the notion of gender at all. Why can't we just be people and not have to pick a culturally-defined side. Can we not pick and choose what we are no matter what side of the spectrum it happens to be from? Can we not be empathic, gentle, generous and also be intellectually curious, skeptical, and independent?

 

I would love to get some ideas of what a libertarian group of people think about femininity, since I think we in general have a great appreciation for what others generally define as masculine traits.

 

Flowiness. I think the shortest possible answer to your question is flowiness. Having it both ways. Sucking oneself and one's admirers into a carefree wonderland of smirky smiles and perky noses (and other things). Using reason as a tool but not an identity, and discarding it for the fashionable, the flippant, and the mind-fucking as needed. A reliance on the intuitive A->Z thinking rather than the logical A->B->C->...->Z thinking. A dismissal of politics or other big issues; she might vote but debating her reasons are off-limits.

 

Men don't find women doing manly things sexy. Men find sexy women doing manly things sexy. See how many men like watching dykes work. Not too many real butchy, ugly dykes in the media, at least not the media I notice. There was a girl on the tv news last week dressed in a suit and tie with a butchy haircut. Pretty enough girl; strange outfit but still appealing, listenable. Give her more masculine features and demeanour and the charm is lost.

 

A woman such as yourself is walking a tightrope between being so masculine she's sexually unattractive to almost everybody, and being so feminine she's useless in a debate or a political action. The traditional solution is to associate with a manly man who outshines you in masculine virtue but is amenable to being substantially helped (ie, you're not just arm candy) by your own cultivation of masculine and feminine virtue, including intuition. This also gives a man the permit to cultivate his own feminine tendencies in a nonthreatening way. I'm thinking of the God and the Goddess in Wicca, here. Both archetypes of well-developed people, humans, but still maintaining sex roles.  (No, I'm not a Wiccan.)

 

I tend to think people without flowiness in their lives are either rare cookies capable of handling the pressure to be 100% logical and competent, or else are unhappy people smushed by the weight of the world.

[brucethecollie]

Someone recently opened up my eyes to how being a female had only to do with the different hormones and the ability to menstruate, be pregnant, lactate, and have menopause.  And that other things associated with femininity are cultural things.  Supposedly, makeup, wigs, high heels, and the color pink were first used by men.  Blue was a feminine color.  Correct me if I'm wrong, a historian friend told me that but I haven't done research myself.  Women shaving, wearing dresses, curling their hair is a cultural norm and a gender norm.  I know some women who catch a lot of flack because they choose not to demonstrate femininity and I've met straight men who demonstrate much of it.  All of these people are straight.  Within women and men there are variable levels of all the hormones we share.

 

I need to find research I saw once on everyone's estrogen going up in the US and other modern countries.  And testosterone deficiency in men on the rise, too.  Soy is in a lot of processed modern foods and diet foods and it mimics estrogen.  Cows milk has been called out as doing that, as well.  Many men on the typical American diet have been demonstrating lower testosterone levels.  I can only imagine how that might be influencing the masses and the way they view issues and respond to them.  

 

 

There seem to be many stories about transwomen wearing their mothers high heels or preferring pink and glitter as little boys, and these things are given as indications that they identify with the female gender. However, there is nothing innately feminine about these things. High heels were once worn by men and pink was once the color given to baby boys, as it was a muted version of red, a very masculine color. If the notion of femininity changes over time or with different cultures, it makes me skeptical of changing/mutilating one's body to conform with societies views. Is it okay to both have a penis and like high heels, glitter, and pink? I would say yes, you should be who you are and do what makes you happy. But if society as a whole says no, should one have to remove their penis and grow breasts to be okay with liking the the things you like?

 

 

That has been my concern and is such a good point...last week a friend told me he is transgender and explained all the feminine things he liked which convinced him of it.  But those things, as you stated, aren't innately feminine.  But how to support someone in this scenario?  I'm just going with it.

[Mothra]

Thanks for all the responses so far!

 

Men don't find women doing manly things sexy. Men find sexy women doing manly things sexy. See how many men like watching dykes work. Not too many real butchy, ugly dykes in the media, at least not the media I notice. There was a girl on the tv news last week dressed in a suit and tie with a butchy haircut. Pretty enough girl; strange outfit but still appealing, listenable. Give her more masculine features and demeanour and the charm is lost.

Good point, that's what I meant. I just thought it was an interesting phenomenon of having a pretty, feminine girl changing a tire or whatnot.

 

Flowiness. I think the shortest possible answer to your question is flowiness. Having it both ways. Sucking oneself and one's admirers into a carefree wonderland of smirky smiles and perky noses (and other things). Using reason as a tool but not an identity, and discarding it for the fashionable, the flippant, and the mind-fucking as needed. A reliance on the intuitive A->Z thinking rather than the logical A->B->C->...->Z thinking. A dismissal of politics or other big issues; she might vote but debating her reasons are off-limits.

I'm still not quite sure what you mean by flowiness. Like going with the flow? Could you elaborate a little?

[Donnadogsoth]

Thanks for all the responses so far!

 

Good point, that's what I meant. I just thought it was an interesting phenomenon of having a pretty, feminine girl changing a tire or whatnot.

 

I'm still not quite sure what you mean by flowiness. Like going with the flow? Could you elaborate a little?

 

Whimsical, mercurial disengagement from the boundaries or restrictions of reality, through fashion, beauty, influence, nuance, status, grace, intuition, prayer.  Glamour would be another term.  Men strive towards something similar in working toward the archetype of unlimited, unstoppable violence or force or control, but that is grounded in physics, in principles of art and science, and women wish to transcend even that.*  To the degree that their glamour allows them to influence the world without even needing to understand it in any principled way, they are exerting feminine control.

 

* Though consider the archetype of the Emperor, who tends toward being more effeminate.  Not much need to come across as a hulking warrior with an unstoppable cudgel when a flick of your manicured, long pinky fingernail can roll a head.

[Mothra]

Whimsical, mercurial disengagement from the boundaries or restrictions of reality, through fashion, beauty, influence, nuance, status, grace, intuition, prayer.  Glamour would be another term.  Men strive towards something similar in working toward the archetype of unlimited, unstoppable violence or force or control, but that is grounded in physics, in principles of art and science, and women wish to transcend even that.*  To the degree that their glamour allows them to influence the world without even needing to understand it in any principled way, they are exerting feminine control.

 

* Though consider the archetype of the Emperor, who tends toward being more effeminate.  Not much need to come across as a hulking warrior with an unstoppable cudgel when a flick of your manicured, long pinky fingernail can roll a head.

 

I've read both of your posts several times now, and I admit I can't help but dislike both definitions. It sounds like you're describing the type of person I would not respect - man or woman. I think that's the problem I'm having - I look at traits like assertiveness, competitiveness, compassion, empathy, being within the confines of reality, etc... and I don't automatically classify them as falling somewhere on a spectrum from masculine to feminine. They just seem like traits to me, traits that any person could have. The evo bio explanation can explain why some general differences have evolved and I get all that, but as Frosty says... 

 

I think the good news is that we're no longer bound by our natural instincts, we're influenced by them but we can intellectually understand that they're influences and make decisions that supersede them.

 

...we have the brainpower to reason ourselves out of natural tendencies. If we ask men to reason themselves out of putting their dick into everything that moves, why can we not expect a woman to reason herself out of blowing $300 on a pair of designer shoes or insisting that she believes in fairies. I'm just not understanding what the attraction would be to someone like that. Sure, I get being attracted to physical beauty and grace. But those other non-physical elements of femininity are what's baffling me, particularly since I find many of them to be plain silly. Aside from things that would make a woman a good mother of course, like empathy, compassion, and generosity. I'm more apt to go with RoseCodex and Frosty, that femininity has to do with being nurturing and sexually selective.

 

They way you describe a feminine woman sounds like a ditzy, willfully ignorant, manipulative, and power hungry person. I hear all that time that men like nice, intelligent women. I get that you would still be sexually attracted to an airhead bitch with a great body, but would a man who prefers "feminine" women be romantically attracted to someone like that? Are you able to separate out the two?

 

If there is a spectrum of feminine to masculine, does each straight man/lesbian have their own version of this spectrum? This would seem to make the whole concept of gender really hard to pin down. I am still confused. Biological sex is much easier to define and deal with. 

[Donnadogsoth]

I've read both of your posts several times now, and I admit I can't help but dislike both definitions. It sounds like you're describing the type of person I would not respect - man or woman. I think that's the problem I'm having - I look at traits like assertiveness, competitiveness, compassion, empathy, being within the confines of reality, etc... and I don't automatically classify them as falling somewhere on a spectrum from masculine to feminine. They just seem like traits to me, traits that any person could have. The evo bio explanation can explain why some general differences have evolved and I get all that, but as Frosty says... 

 

 

...we have the brainpower to reason ourselves out of natural tendencies. If we ask men to reason themselves out of putting their dick into everything that moves, why can we not expect a woman to reason herself out of blowing $300 on a pair of designer shoes or insisting that she believes in fairies. I'm just not understanding what the attraction would be to someone like that. Sure, I get being attracted to physical beauty and grace. But those other non-physical elements of femininity are what's baffling me, particularly since I find many of them to be plain silly. Aside from things that would make a woman a good mother of course, like empathy, compassion, and generosity. I'm more apt to go with RoseCodex and Frosty, that femininity has to do with being nurturing and sexually selective.

 

They way you describe a feminine woman sounds like a ditzy, willfully ignorant, manipulative, and power hungry person. Help me out, guys. I hear all that time that men like nice, intelligent women. I get that you would still be sexually attracted to an airhead bitch with a great body, but would a man who prefers "feminine" women be romantically attracted to someone like that? Are you able to separate out the two?

 

If there is a spectrum of feminine to masculine, does each straight man/lesbian have their own version of this spectrum? This would seem to make the whole concept of gender really hard to pin down. I am still confused. Biological sex is much easier to define and deal with. 

 

There used to be an order to things that would refine and collect these traits, feminine and masculine, so that they worked together. We shouldn't bear in mind how the heterosexual dynamic operates today because it's broken.

 

When I describe femininity I'm describing it in all its aspects, including the hysterical, cunning bitch aspect. But I do think that the description I gave of the feminine is accurate, and that today it is unregulated and thus metastasises more easily into either feminism or into apolitical airheads.

 

I don't want you to think feminine is all a woman is, as I enthusiastically encourage people to be human, and cultivate the virtues of compassion, reason, politeness, and the like. But what I don't want to do is to encourage us all to gel together as humans at the cost of destroying femininity and masculinity, of destroying the heterosexual dynamic entire, which is what the feminist/LGBT&c revolution is doing.

 

I want a girl who is in substantial part girlish, not just nurturing and sexually selective, but embodying the flowiness or glamour I mentioned.  Otherwise I would be marrying an intelligent bag lady.  To marry right, though, means I have to embody a higher level of masculinity than our contemporary culture encourages or explains to young men.

 

A counterquestion to you is, what is masculinity? If we answer that we might see femininity clearer.  The most succinct answer that comes to mind is "mechanical advantage".

[Donnadogsoth]

In the meantime I'll answer it myself.  I think the essence of masculinity is mechanical advantage, which can be subdivided into four categories as per Jack Donovan:  strength, courage, skill or mastery, and honour.  The first three should be obvious; the forth must be understood when viewing (male) society as a machine that needs its parts in working (honourable) order in order to function properly.  So we have the basis for a male gang or hunting party, the traits that each (sane) member wants to see in the other members, for the individual's sake and the party's sake.

 

To let this sink in, ask whether masculinity is defined  by weakness, cowardice, ineptitude, and lying.  Not much to recommend masculinity then, huh?

 

In this light, consider femininity again as flowiness.  It should be subdivided too, and I recommend doing so into intuition, beauty, signals/tokens, and flexibility.  These are the four characteristics that women need to deal with a world created (literally) by men, by male hunting and war parties.  They need intuition to deal with reticent male psyches and to outwit other females, they need beauty to please them and find a mate and compete with other females, they need signals/tokens to make psychological advances without commitment, and they need flexibility to create plausible deniability and to turn situations to advantage even if reason and honour say otherwise.

 

Now, ask whether femininity is defined by reason, ugliness, obvious signals of involvement, and rigidity of honour and conduct.

 

I argue that the masculine is defined by the traits needed for the hunt.

I argue that the feminine is defined by the traits needed for the hearth.

 

EDITED TO ADD:  On further thought, I think "flexibility" and "signals/tokens" are misleading.  The four core traits of femininity, of flowiness, are intuition, beauty, nurturing, and guile/grace.  Thus I would situate reason under the male subcategory of mastery.  Women can, of course, attain to reason, but it is not a characteristically female trait, it is a male trait and a human trait.

[Frosty]

...we have the brainpower to reason ourselves out of natural tendencies. If we ask men to reason themselves out of putting their dick into everything that moves, why can we not expect a woman to reason herself out of blowing $300 on a pair of designer shoes or insisting that she believes in fairies. I'm just not understanding what the attraction would be to someone like that. Sure, I get being attracted to physical beauty and grace. But those other non-physical elements of femininity are what's baffling me, particularly since I find many of them to be plain silly. Aside from things that would make a woman a good mother of course, like empathy, compassion, and generosity. I'm more apt to go with RoseCodex and Frosty, that femininity has to do with being nurturing and sexually selective.

 

They way you describe a feminine woman sounds like a ditzy, willfully ignorant, manipulative, and power hungry person. Help me out, guys. I hear all that time that men like nice, intelligent women. I get that you would still be sexually attracted to an airhead bitch with a great body, but would a man who prefers "feminine" women be romantically attracted to someone like that? Are you able to separate out the two?

 

If there is a spectrum of feminine to masculine, does each straight man/lesbian have their own version of this spectrum? This would seem to make the whole concept of gender really hard to pin down. I am still confused. Biological sex is much easier to define and deal with. 

 

If the trait is harmless or mostly harmless then there's no real pressure to squash it, for example not sticking your dick in crazy has a lot of positive effects and so is good advice for men, where as not buying fancy $300 shoes as apposed to spending $300 on some other luxury good, that's not so bad. Generally speaking because of females natural advantage in the sexual market place men aren't that quick to be judgmental, it does nothing to help your chances. I'm an edge case who isn't actively pursuing a partner so I have the luxury of judging women without repercussion.

 

It's not attractive in any way that men appreciate i doubt, some shoes such as heels alter physical appearance (appearance of longer legs, bum sticks out), but I think other than that there's no strong tendance for it to be directly attractive, as I said before it's likely a biological traits evolved for another purpose and is mal-adapted for modern day, although what the original purpose is I have no idea. Modern human civilization came about at the snap of the fingers in evolutionary-time so we've not yet adapted to our new surroundings and social pressures.

 

Some men like nice, intelligent women, that's not always the case, many men still think with their penis. I'm  not sure that romance is really an important factor for men who are younger and playing the field, romance is really at the root of a more long term relationship where you expect trust and respect and you want to gauge the other persons other values than just how good they look or how strong the initial sexual attraction is.

 

Sexual orientation is decided at a different stage during fetal development which means that sexual orientation is independent of gender and hence isn't tied to gender, and I'm hypothesising that it's gender that's primarily tied to femininity/masculinity. There's very feminine gay men for example, there's also very masculine gay men, there's very feminine gay women and very butch gay women which seems to support this idea.

 

Just keep in mind that componens of sexual humanity are all spectrums and they're all completely independent as explained here http://media01.commpartners.com/AMA/sexual_identity_jan_2011/index.htmlat step 3 in the index. I think it's possible for people who's gender identity is opposite of their bioloigical sex (trans) can take on a social role (masculine/feminine) which is opposite from their gender identity (that is to say aligned with their biological sex), but that appears to be extremely rare as I understand it, it's common for trans people to simply be feminine if they feel like they have a female brain, and masculine if they feel like they have a male brain.

[Mothra]

There used to be an order to things that would refine and collect these traits, feminine and masculine, so that they worked together. We shouldn't bear in mind how the heterosexual dynamic operates today because it's broken.

 

When I describe femininity I'm describing it in all its aspects, including the hysterical, cunning bitch aspect. But I do think that the description I gave of the feminine is accurate, and that today it is unregulated and thus metastasises more easily into either feminism or into apolitical airheads.

 

Okay, I'm with you now. It seems like all this started occurring in the 70s, with the welfare state and the rise of gender feminism. Perhaps this hypergirliness (I'm thinking of princess obsession and the like) is a backlash to the more imitative masculine "we can do anything men can do" mentality. So now you have feminine women rejecting any trait that could be thought of as masculine.

[Donnadogsoth]

Okay, I'm with you now. It seems like all this started occurring in the 70s, with the welfare state and the rise of gender feminism. Perhaps this hypergirliness (I'm thinking of princess obsession and the like) is a backlash to the more imitative masculine "we can do anything men can do" mentality. So now you have feminine women rejecting any trait that could be thought of as masculine.

 

As indeed men are encouraged to reject same (mascuilne) traits, boys being drugged for acting like boys etc.--what drugs would Tom Sawyer have been on?, even as society continues to demand male productive labour.

 

Hypergirls though are not retreating into healthy femininity.  Their princesses don't revolve around princes, they revolve around...other princesses.  And when under stress the female becomes hypersexual as a reproduction strategy--even though in this hedonic culture reproduction is uncelebrated and the products of conception considered disposable.  Feminism may frown at hypergirliness and promiscuity, but it tolerates it, even as it promotes sexual liberation (slutwalks), autonomy, androgyny, rigged laws, and misandry. 

 

In drug culture mixing uppers and downers is called a goofball.  Feminism offers a pink goofball for boys and a blue goofball for girls, and then wonders why boys and girls seem disorientated.  Or, rather, it doesn't wonder, because disorientating the heterosexual majority is an intended achievement.

[Donnadogsoth]

Thoughts on the ultimate masculine vs the ultimate feminine in terms of genre films.  Take a few from the oeuvre of James Cameron.  The Terminator is just about the manliest man there is, embodying strength, courage, mastery, and honour--literally he is exclusively motivated by his code.  Detached from humanity, he is a monster, as pure men qua men are monsters.  He's even largely defined by the long, hard, penetrating weapons he carries around.

Now contrast that with the alien queen from Aliens.  She's strong and courageous, yes, but she really embodies intuition (figuring out the use of the elevator), guile (commanding her soldiers to retreat in the face of a detente), nurturing (egglaying and raising a brood), and beauty (she is a marvellous organism--look at those teeth and claws, and wonderful big hair shield).  Incarnate feminine, she is a monster, as pure women qua women are monsters.

Notice how both are pitted against like-sexed opponents.  The Terminator faces Kyle Reese, who is just as much a man as the terminator is, but who is also a good man.  That is, the terminator is good at being a man, but Reese is a good man, or perhaps better said, he is a human man, a good human being.

Consider now Ellen Ripley.  She is a character originally written for a woman, and so embodies masculine attributes of strength, courage, mastery (learned that rifle some quick) and honour.  She is beautiful, but not portrayed as particularly intuitive or beguiling, but she does have a quality of grace-under-fire (To the soldiers:  "Where you want it?"), and she is nurturing towards her adoptive daughter.  She is not bad at being a woman, but she is less a good woman than a good human being.

Thus, these two filims, for example, show ultimate confrontations between ultimate incarnations of masculinity and femininity, with the exception that Ripley is portrayed as out-manning the men, so in a sense it's a double role.  The Terminator and the Alien Queen have only their raw sexual power to use, and thus the moral of the story is that meritorious, humanised sexuality, should win out over raw, dehumanised sexuality.

[shirgall]

Femininity is just as good as masculinity, only well-behaved, neatly coiffed, and demure (Y-chromosomes suppress these qualities, but do allow the advantage of not dirtying dishes by eating over the sink).

[Mister Mister]

...we have the brainpower to reason ourselves out of natural tendencies. If we ask men to reason themselves out of putting their dick into everything that moves, why can we not expect a woman to reason herself out of blowing $300 on a pair of designer shoes or insisting that she believes in fairies.

 

^This is quite brilliant, it really made me smile and think.  I think you're onto something - rationality is supposed to be a male thing, while empathy/emotionality is supposed to be a female thing, but I think this is BS.  We all have the capacity for both, but maybe men and women tend to express them in different ways.  Can I again suggest that you call in to Stef with this question?  I think it would be really enjoyable.

 

Someone recently opened up my eyes to how being a female had only to do with the different hormones and the ability to menstruate, be pregnant, lactate, and have menopause.  And that other things associated with femininity are cultural things.

 

Yes and no.  By definition, those things you mentioned are what defines female as separate from male.  But as Frosty and I described, evolution has also developed different brains and behaviors that males and females needed to survive and reproduce.  Then on top of that, you have the cultural expectations, which makes the whole mess quite confusing, especially in today's politically charged gender-discussion.  I think the big issue is that both masculinity and femininity, to many people, are just shallow characteristics which have nothing to do with , He-Man on the one side, and Barbie on the other.  Then, as a reaction to this, you have the post-modernist SJW types who reject the idea that there is any difference between the sexes, and embrace a naive gender-fluidity.  That's why I think we should stop talking about gender altogether and just look at sex, like you were talking about bruce, but also we need to be honest with young people as far as the real differences between the sexes and their respective reproductive strategies.

 

There used to be an order to things that would refine and collect these traits, feminine and masculine, so that they worked together. We shouldn't bear in mind how the heterosexual dynamic operates today because it's broken.

 

See, I'm confused because you say this^ but then your "answer" to Mothra's question seems tainted by your negative experiences with women.  In other words, you aren't talking about femininity as a biological phenomenon throughout history, but only about your own experiences with femininity.  Or at least that's how it seems to me.

[Donnadogsoth]

 

See, I'm confused because you say this^ but then your "answer" to Mothra's question seems tainted by your negative experiences with women.  In other words, you aren't talking about femininity as a biological phenomenon throughout history, but only about your own experiences with femininity.  Or at least that's how it seems to me.

 

Except I haven't had any significant negative experiences with women.  My experiences have been neutral-good.  But there is an absence there, that tells me those experiences could have been very good, if only I knew what masculinity, femininity, and the heterosexual dynamic entailed, instead of fumbling in the dark grappling with phantoms and instincts.

[AccuTron]

Loose ends:

 

--it's common that military uniforms will have collars with color tabs, showing the branch of service.  In WW2 German military, pink was used for motor transport services.  Armor was black and pink; in dress uniform, the pink was dominant.  I cannot imagine a Tiger tank commander being called a sissy.  Waffenfarbe - Wikipedia, Ranks and insignia of the Heer (1935–1945) - Wikipedia  

 

--almost twenty years ago, I was working in a wholesale food prep business.  Most of the line employees, about ten, were hispanic. (I should interject here, less I should suggest a utopia, that these very cute women would likely meet an hispanic man who knocked them up then split, leaving them with children and increasingly large belly fat.  Too bad the innocent are so innocent.)

 

Nicaragua, Costa Rica, unknown others.  One thing really struck me:  The women, some of them especially, were very feminine.  Quite capable, no compromise there.  

 

I had NEVER known a feeling like that before.  Just standing near (some) of them, I--FELT--GOOD.  Simply good, no complications.  Nobody was flirting or speaking or anything, no agenda, they were...and I thought about it, what was it?  (And yes this is a limited sample, but it illustrates the point.)

 

They are not mean-spirited.  They are genuinely respectful!  Not brash or haughty or arrogant or fraudulent...ya' know, like most women we see now in Western Civ countries.  I had the feeling that if I tried to talk to them about reason and honesty (assuming we spoke the same language), they would listen, not fight!  If they didn't know something, they'd admit it without any penalty, not lie and lie and lie.

 

Take away the crap, and what's left is (okay, might be) feminine.  So I'd broadly define feminine as being decent in character, and having not-awful looks.  If you are a girl, and don't fuck it up, then you are by default feminine...even better if you were raised by such, good luck on that.  The catch is to not fuck it up, and this culture is utterly deadly.  It's about the spirit of the woman.  Is she a jerk?  

 

Another example:  in town there is a weekend outdoor market, and the Vietnamese food stand is primarily run by an adult woman, who is stunning.  She has good features, but features without character are just empty yuck.  It's her character that shows, and she didn't really do anything, just took money and gave back food.  

 

She seems to me to have not been raised in this country, or if she came over when young, the women raising her were from the old country.  She has two teen daughters, raised here, and they show nothing of that character.  The grandmother is working more towards the back, see her less, maybe doesn't speak English, and she seems honorable to me in her quietness, not diminished.  Just the feeling I get.  

 

I have discussed this with a USA man who has travelled to SE Asia and Central America, seriously a backwoods, off the beaten track traveller, meets women en route from yet other countries.  His words over one lunch were "American women are trouble, they're nothing but trouble." (As he threw his partly eaten taco down to his plate in disgust.)  Boy, did that resonate.

 

I have been in the non-sexual company of an attractive housemate who I went to dinner with.  Dress and heels, and a real looker, I felt pretty jazzed up to just be seen with her.  Yet, inside, she has characteristics that serve the Devil, details aside, the topic is very well covered here re ego vs honesty.  Doesn't matter who gets hurt, just don't admit being wrong.  Western woman in a nutshell.  So if I were to date...and I'm not...I now see those female clothes as facade hiding dishonor.  Too bad about that, doesn't have to be that way.  

 

Feminine?  It's Character  Character  Character  Character.

 

EDIT:  the house next door is being extensively remodeled, and the owners and workers are all Mexican or other hispanic.  Pleasant people.  I saw painters show up, and might need some work in a couple of years, so over the fence I asked for a card, of a young female who I saw up on the ladder doing detail prep.  She was polite, as any business contact might be, but it was more...that Old Spanish gentility, is that what I'm sensing?  Seriously, those mere seconds made a vastly better impression on me than years of sloshing through "whitey girl" crap.  Like it was core, not facade.

[Donnadogsoth]

What do you mean "character character character character"?  If a man and a woman have exactly the same character, will they be equal parts masculine and feminine?  Is there not a distinctive set of traits that comprise a feminine woman, and another set of traits that comprise a masculine man?

[AccuTron]

What do you mean "character character character character"?  If a man and a woman have exactly the same character, will they be equal parts masculine and feminine?  Is there not a distinctive set of traits that comprise a feminine woman, and another set of traits that comprise a masculine man?

Tough one to pin down.  It's true that male/female tend to have different interests and skills, but that's sort of surface.  Where I'm coming from is that a woman generally should be born with a certain amount of potential charm...heck, doggies generally manage that...but arrogance or meanness or dishonesty kills it.  Character in this case means that the ego is not the supreme motivator.  Maybe it's like saying a sunny day is one without overcast; the sun is already there, just don't obscure it.  

 

I have a vague memory of a day camp at young age.  There were a male and a female instructors, and I was strongly drawn to each without any intellectual element, pure innate response.  I'd say they both had similar character...in my very limited sample...in that they both struck me as kind and honest and genuine.  I didn't have the vocabulary for that, then, but was purely reactive to their essence.  I was assigned the male, who was fine, but I was drawn to the female.  (Both male and female healthy elements were grossly missing from my childhood, so each was like an oasis in the desert.)  She was a healthy female.  Undamaged, honest.  Like the unblocked sun, her feminine light simply showed, even if she didn't do much.

[Danske]

This question puts me in mind of a walled garden. In general I would associate femininity (not women) with tending the garden, and masculinity (not men) with building the wall, and deciding who to let in. An undefended garden will be ransacked, and a wall defending nothing is a waste of time.

 

The nurturer, and protector so to speak. That we must all adequately develop in ourselves.

The worst relationships I see are overly aggressive men with overly sexual/manipulative women. They truly are stuck in fixed roles.

 

One thing I will add, even as a man, I find myself identifying more with the feminine due to my childhood experiences and am trying to grow my masculine side now (i.e. part that can 'get things done' with gusto, determination and energy), probably due to my mother wanting a daughter and being unable to shake that desire even after I was born so it greatly influenced my early childhood experiences.

 

 

 

 

 

Regarding women being sexy when doing traditionally male things, I think it's just novelty,

 

 

Or perhaps it's propoganda. The more they can promote women working male jobs, the more willing human capital the tax farmers get.

[Frosty]

Or perhaps it's propoganda. The more they can promote women working male jobs, the more willing human capital the tax farmers get.

 

I'm just speaking for my own personal preference for it, for ages I went looking for women who had an interest in typically male dominated things, things that I was interested in because then I'd have some things in common with the person I was dating, I always though that was really desireable and I never quite understood why.

 

I went into an electronics store the other day and overheard a female working behind the counter speaking to the customer in front of me and she was discussing skyrim (a fairly popular RPG for PC and consoles) and I kind of smirked to myself, there's something very novel about that to a geek like me, especially if it's sincere. I've never been able to pin that down, what is it about that which is so appealing. Open to theories but no it's not propaganda of any kind.

[Donnadogsoth]

I'm just speaking for my own personal preference for it, for ages I went looking for women who had an interest in typically male dominated things, things that I was interested in because then I'd have some things in common with the person I was dating, I always though that was really desireable and I never quite understood why.

 

I went into an electronics store the other day and overheard a female working behind the counter speaking to the customer in front of me and she was discussing skyrim (a fairly popular RPG for PC and consoles) and I kind of smirked to myself, there's something very novel about that to a geek like me, especially if it's sincere. I've never been able to pin that down, what is it about that which is so appealing. Open to theories but no it's not propaganda of any kind.

 

Not to be too coarse about it, but, strictly speaking, she's handling your accessories with care and interest.

[Frosty]

Not to be too coarse about it, but, strictly speaking, she's handling your accessories with care and interest.

 

Oh sure there's a component of customer satisfaction I think is what you're saying? She has a motivation to handle customers in a positive way. Given he was already at the til and paying I'm not sure that's the case, I don't think any overly positive interaction is going to occur there because of his value of a customer, and besides it's fairly easy to detect feigned interest in some subjects like the complexities of RPGs.

 

Unless by accessories you mean his junk...total other thing.

[Donnadogsoth]

Oh sure there's a component of customer satisfaction I think is what you're saying? She has a motivation to handle customers in a positive way. Given he was already at the til and paying I'm not sure that's the case, I don't think any overly positive interaction is going to occur there because of his value of a customer, and besides it's fairly easy to detect feigned interest in some subjects like the complexities of RPGs.

 

Unless by accessories you mean his junk...total other thing.

 

Regarding the situation mentioned, I mean it's the feminine taking interest in the accoutrements of the masculine.  She's being flowy, she's a little bit melting over the interests and actions and objects of the male.  For many men that's part of the appeal of the feminine.  Again as noted by others and self sexy girls working in masculine demesnes can be sexier than otherwise, to many men, for the novelty but also the flowiness. 

 

"Ooh Ziggy tell me more about amortisation..."

[DaVinci]

 

 

Testosterone makes males aggressive both in terms of competing with each other for resources but also sexual partners, it accounts for higher sex drive. It's also really strongly correlated with interest in systems vs people, for example female new born babies will tend to stare at faces as a preference over objects/systems and they'll stare for longer, males tend to prefer objects/systems and again stare for longer, this is all before there's any social influence. Testosterone is also strongly correlated with interest in STEM fields in later life, and not just for males, if a female has an over exposure to testosterone during foetal development then she'll be much more likely to be interest in STEM in later life, long term studies following babies into adulthood have confirmed this.

 

 

What exactly constitutes objects/systems? That seems rather broad. I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just curious for some clarification.