Femininity

Aritzia tank (similar)
Zara trousers (similar)
Balenciaga heels
Gucci handbag
Le Specs sunglasses
Vintage watch (similar)
Maris Pearl Co. necklace (c/o)
& Other Stories earrings
Location: Saint-Boniface Cathedral – Winnipeg, Manitoba

When I was eighteen, I got my first grown-up job selling perfume at The Bay. It felt like a coup – I was originally offered a position at the CHANEL counter, the most glamourous of the beauty brands. I couldn’t take it; the position was full-time and I started university just a few months after receiving the offer. But the point was that I received it. Someone believed that I was fabulous and feminine enough to work for CHANEL. All my efforts were paying off.

I spent my mid-to-late teen years chasing after that precise form of validation. At fifteen, I gave up gymnastics, a sport I’d pursued doggedly for the better part of a decade. While never naturally talented, I was athletic and willing to work hard. I was an athlete. The problem with being an athlete is that it is an inherently physical pursuit and as a fragile, not-yet-fully-formed teenaged human, it is entirely too easy to define yourself by what you do rather than who you are. My personal worth, in the years I practised gymnastics, was entirely tied up in my physical prowess; my ability to constantly jump higher and run faster.

What happened when I didn’t need to run and jump anymore was predictable enough – my perception of my worth shifted just slightly. Instead of believing my value was based on my physical ability, I came to think it was based on my physical appearance. I would be better if I were more beautiful. What I can’t explain is why beauty and femininity were so intrinsically linked in my mind. And why my definition of femininity was so narrow, pink-hued, rose-scented, passive and frankly, deadly dull. (Although I suspect that definition was informed by subtle messages in TV shows, school lessons and teen magazines, all of which reinforced the notion that girls should be good, quiet and accommodating.)

femininity
noun
fem· i· nin· i· ty | \ ˌfe-mə-ˈni-nə-tē \
Definition of femininity
1: the quality or nature of the female sex

What I do know is that suddenly, my favourite colour was pink. Despite my lifelong devotion to pants, I started shopping for dresses. I wasted hours filing my nails into a perfect square shape – every. single. evening. If a lipgloss contained a healthy dose of glitter, the chances of my buying it, convinced that I needed it, doubled instantly. It was all an illusion, of course – a decade before the dawn of the social media era, I figured out how to create the appearance of an identity to present to the world that bore no resemblance to reality. And for the most part, despite the fact that I scribbled Bad Religion lyrics on the blank pages of my day planner and regularly asserted that I would never have kids, people believed me.

Most people.

I don’t know why I was behind the Lancome counter with Angela that night. I’m sure I should have been waiting on non-existent customers at my own counter. But we were largely unsupervised at work, particularly in the evenings, so she was doing my make-up. Hesitating between two shades of lipstick, she ultimately chose one over the other because, “You’re more sporty, really.”

She meant nothing by that statement, made off the cuff in a moment of frivolous indecision. I knew it even at the time. But those words cut me deeply, particularly because of how true they were. I tried so hard to be pretty and feminine, but it was clear that my efforts were in vain. In the end, I would always want to choose pants over dresses. I would always be decisive and sanguine and loathe the colour pink.

While I wish I could say that was the night that I began to understand the femininity is not an appearance or adherence to a set of socially prescribed rules but the simple act of being female, however that manifests itself in an individual. In reality, I doubled down out of sheer stubbornness and spent another year pursuing all things pink and glittery before I finally came to my senses.

“You can be soft and successful, a traditionalist and a rebel, a lover and a fighter, vulnerable and invincible.”

Femininity is, quite simply, the nature of being feminine. And no matter what anyone tries to tell you, being feminine is an utterly individual act that every woman defines for herself.

There is so much that I wish I could tell my younger self. I wish she could have understood sooner that her worth is intrinsic and in no way related to any external factors. And that she could have embraced the idea that traditional concepts of femininity exist to keep women quiet and powerless, the antithesis of what she wanted to be. That she had known that femininity is not just one thing – that it can mean being outspoken and preferring trousers but still loving the act of stumbling upon a perfect pair of shoes on unexpected sale. But mostly, I wish she had known that CHANEL was right – sporty or girly, she was always fabulous enough.

Shop the Post