Femininity

[Like Ra]

all these where starting from so called "feminine" gesture.

It started with the first post almost 2 years ago when I asked:

But what is femininity for you? How would you define it? Any examples? Photos? Drawings? What is "utter feminine" in your opinion?

So, let me repeat it:

What is femininity for you? How would you define it? Any examples? Photos? Drawings? What is "utter feminine" in your opinion?

[no smile]

Ok, I get it. I just forgot the real starting question. I just jumped in this thread some week ago. Good to recall it 😉

I'll make an answer later for my opinion.

[princesitanatty]

What is femininity for you? How would you define it? Any examples? Photos? Drawings? What is "utter feminine" in your opinion?

For me, it's "female-typicality of traits".

[princesitanatty]

You are not giving a definition. It's not a problem of abstraction, you can put whatever you want in a set, but you must be clear on what the set includes and excludes. You say the set of men includes "everything about men", but that is not clear enough to identify a set.
(...)
I repeat my request that you write a clear definition of the sets.

I think I aeady heard that before  😁

If a man has a feminine face, where would you locate this trait? In the intersection, or outside the intersection, at its left or at its right? See that this is a female-typical trait, and a trait of a man.

Of course you can guess. But you might be wrong in your guess, because some people have sex-atypical traits that might cause a misclassification. Also, because gender identity and gender display might diverge from biological sex. But this doesn't change my previous point.

Yes, but that is not the problem. The problem is that your model mixes two different issues: biological sex of individuals, and sex-typicality of traits. The difference is explained in the link I've proposed above in this thread.

I love this...

And furthermore, all these where starting from so called "feminine" gesture.  That's the whole point I'm trying to underline from the start but taking another line with the physical traits.

I think that by trying to simplify things in a chart, we tend to prevail what's making our point and remove the rest.  Like theorising (from an idea) and then searching the facts proving it.

What is your opinion about this topic?

[Like Ra]

For me, it's "female-typicality of traits".

How would you define it? Any examples? Photos? Drawings?

[princesitanatty]

For me, it's "female-typicality of traits".

How would you define it? Any examples? Photos? Drawings?

Definition: traits that have a higher probability in women and a lower probability in men. Examples: higher pitch of voice, hourglass shape of body, big ass, boobies, hairless body, coy behavior as a flirt strategy, androphilic sexual desires, higher interest in taking care of children, lower aggresivity and competitivity, submissive fantasies, receptive role in the sexual intercourse, usage of lipstick and make-up as gender display, usage of skirts and high heels, long hair. I leave to others the request of photos or drawings.

[Like Ra]

Let's continue:

           
               




Yes, guys can do that too, but it's not feminine 😁

   

[no smile]

Women are in average smaller. Added to the fact that having a gf taller than you is not sexy/trendy, it just seems odd. A girl having to tip toe to give a kiss is just cute and you just don't find it cute for a guy because being smaller is associated to begin more vulnerable, which is one of the feminine stereotype...
Ok, it's part of the answer I still need to give to the question. I'll try to give tonight or tomorrow.

[Like Ra]

Women are in average smaller. Added to the fact that having a gf taller than you is not sexy/trendy, it just seems odd. A girl having to tip toe to give a kiss is just cute and you just don't find it cute for a guy because being smaller is associated to begin more vulnerable, which is one of the feminine stereotype.

Yes, yes, yes and yes 😊

[no smile]

Ok, here I'll give a try on my definition.  I thinked a lot about it, how to turn it with what I know while staying straight, so sorry for the long post but I tried to be as clear as possible.

Feminity and masculinity are a construct made by our societies to help identify who is a men and who is a women, keeping a social order as it is.  It implies a small part of physical differences and a huge part of purely social construct which evolved with time and change with the society.

I made a little general drawing (my real opinion about it is expressed later) :

   

In this drawing, I made masculinity and feminity greater than just sex and gender.  I'm not sure it's the case (this is the point of my last paragraph) but it's mainly more readable.  The somebody's 3 part set is an example of an individual (voluntarily mixed, but usually, it would only be the first set).

Let's explain :

- Male and female sex are physical attribute linked to the physical body.  I used 2 sets because up today, medicinal science implies there are 2 sex (even if it lack a definition of what defines male and female but that's another debate). The intersection is of course what's common between the 2.  (We all usually have 2 legs, a huge bunch of common dna, etc..)
But we should keep in mind that part of the differences are all time being, others are historically developed and where not present some millenia ago.  Probably due to the well-differentiated role given to man and women.  ( for recall and the links, my long post )  So we have intrinsic differences (not really defined by science like having a penis, ovaries, usually different voice pitch, ...) and developed differences like having differences in weight, height, ...  And of course, there are differences we don't know where to place because, its probably part both like muscular development which is controlled by hormones but also influenced by historical/societal background.

- Here it become a bit trickier : male and female gender are the social differences linked to the 2 sexes.  Gender are purely social construct to help differentiate who is a man and who is a women.  I'm convinced there are in fact more than 2 gender (I'll come to that later) but since gender is usually linked to sex, I only drawn the usual 2 for clarity.  What's in these is huge :

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You have stereotype like men are logical and women are emotional.  Let's take an example of this time moving stereotype : Did you know that on the early ages of IT, the men where only developing the hardware but the real coding was considered insignificant (even if coding in assembler language implies you should know all the aspect of the machine you are programming).  As a result, the people who have made all the codings of the NASA, and even of the moon landing where in fact women!  Nowadays, in our western societies, we think coding is not for women because of it's complexity, because it needs logic and abstraction...  And at the same time, in Malaysia, there is a majority of women in IT and specially in programming because they think it's safer for them (you can code at home and get away of men arrasement, it's better for women since you don't need muscle force, it's not dangerous, ...)  ❗    (for those interested (in French, sorry) : https://www.le-passeur-editeur.com/les-l...numérique/ ).

Another example of the wrongness of stereotype : we have (Europe and America) a lot of women nurse because we think women are deeply engaged in other's care (like educating children, taking care of elderly people, ...).  While doctors are mainly men because you need a brain...  But, we also say men are stronger than women.  So why are not men in the nurse part where you have to move body (dead or not), help elderly to get up, ...???  Because it's degrading...

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You have the way society wants you to behave.  Like a men should have virility.  Be strong and should not take care of others.  And here we discover the horror of the poor little boy arrassed by his fellow classmate because he wears glasses and is not interested in sport, nor is he strong.  While women should be gentle and flexible, which is why we have a majority of girls taking danse/ballet class (being calm, control yourself, ...) while boys go to football, soccer, basketball, (need to express your energy, occupy wild outer space, etc)...  Yes, we now have girls going to football etc. But because it's cooler to go the the "strong part".  And we don't have that much boys taking ballet or gym class (despite the leotard  😁 ) and going to the "soft part".  Again, society is running by the men point of view...  And this whole ballet discussion make me go back to the "feminine gesture" discussion we had with @likera about Ophelia and men not being able to make such gesture.  So, yes, after thinking, nowadays, such gesture are feminine, but not because you are a women (sex), but because you fit the bill of your sex!  ❗

And of course, the way you should behave is linked to the stereotype we talked before.  That's why some guy tend to go out with smaller girls while the reverse is not so trendy.

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You have the way you should wear fashion.  Men don't wear skirt and their wardrobe is much more simpler than the women's one.  I don't need to extend how fashion is always evolving and changing.  Like the not so far away time (16th century if I recall correctly) where men had heels on their shoes, nylon/satin stocking, short frilled dress, waist underline and cute hat while women had to hide everything.
http://uffnervintage.blogspot.com/2009/1...y-cod.html
       
While nowadays, well, you know what I meant  😉

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You have what @Likera called aesthetically pleasant but other than fashion like the shape of your body, the way you present your hair, your smell, ...

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I'll stop here on what's in gender because it's still a long way and not helping here I think.  Now, feminity/masculinity is both the gender assumption and the body.  But since there is a lot of these that evolved with time, place of birth/living, ...  I don't think there is much utterly feminine (or masculine), except for a very small part common through time and places.  So, except part of the sex differences, in gender, I don't think there is much...

Now, a bit of utopia here.  As you saw, the gender definition/assumption are changing, and you can have the body of a men while having xx chromosomes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_sex-det...ion_system), or both ovaries and testicle, hence the lack of scientific definition of male sex and female sex.  (That would define with 100% probability your "real" sex, as a real definition  😁 ).  And maybe a real scientific definition would imply having more than 2 sexes...

Individually (here, I refer to the 3 sets of somebody), you could completely identify yourself as masculine, but most of the time, you take some part in the other gender, and sometimes, even sex (not chosen of course).  And since gender is a pure societal-always-changing construct, why limiting ourself to 2 genders?  I mean, why not more?  Like 2 definition of being a men?  In a way, with the actual search of a new definition of masculinity (like taking care of children and house instead of your wife while she goes to work), this is quite what we are having right now...  But we try to redefine the whole set (trying to force it to everyone) while we could add another gender, both being masculine, each taking it's part.  And the same apply to the feminine part.  Or even further, if we were completely egalitarian would there still be a gender-sex link?  You could be much more free to choose what you want to take/be.


Well, that said, I'll add a last bit which is important in this thread I think.  Since we don't all apply completely to our gender assignment, we surely don't look all for the same attribute in our partner/mate/couple...  So we all have our own set of feminity/masculinity.  Most is common but some part are removed or added for each individual.  And don't wrong me, I'm not talking about sexual preferences, or what arouse you.  I'm talking about what a person think defines a woman (gender).  I (as example and partly in opposite of the definition of @princesitanatty ) do not imply a woman to have to wear heels or makeup or having to shave to be feminine.  Of course heels and stockings are sexy (and arousing) but for me, it's not part of being a women (and my gf does not that much wear heels and makeup and almost never stocking while she's still a women) and a men arouse me as much in such attribute. 
In fact, for me, the body part is much more important than the gender part in the definition of a women (I would call it "my woman" definition, not a feminity definition).  But I mainly don't see the point of trying to define a women/men gender (and so, masculinity/feminity) and most of the time, such definition tend to piss me off since I just find it restrictive.  (But you might have seen that in my reactions, sorry  😁  ).