Home > Topic > femaleness
1 " [She] was a remarkable looking woman. Remarkable in that she wasn’t what most people would call beautiful. But she oozed a raw femaleness that I was certain made most women uncomfortable and sent men walking into walls. And when she smiled. Well. That was magic. "
― Beth Hoffman , Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
2 " Thirty years on, femininity is still compulsory for women—and has become an option for men—while genuine femaleness remains grotesque to the point of obscenity. Meanwhile, the price of the small advances we have made towards sexual equality has been the denial of femaleness as any kind of a distinguishing character. "
― Germaine Greer , The Whole Woman
3 " We do not have to spend money and go hungry and struggle and study to become sensual; we always were. We need not believe we must somehow earn good erotic care; we always deserved it. Femaleness and its sexuality are beautiful. Women have long secretly suspected as much. In that sexuality, women are physically beautiful already; superb; breathtaking.Many, many men see this way too. A man who wants to define himself as a real lover of women admires what shows of her past on a woman's face, before she ever saw him, and the adventures and stresses that her body has undergone, the scars of trauma, the changes of childbirth, her distinguishing characteristics, the light is her expression. The number of men who already see in this way is far greater than the arbiters of mass culture would lead us to believe, since the story they need to tell ends with the opposite moral. "
― Naomi Wolf , The Beauty Myth
4 " 14. God created two sexes, male and female. They are equal in worth, although each is unique and different. It is not only impossible to blend maleness and femaleness into a single sex (unisex), it is dangerous to even attempt it. "
― James C. Dobson , Life on the Edge: The Next Generation's Guide to a Meaningful Future
5 " We have gone on too long blaming or pitying the mothers who devour their children, who sow the seeds of progressive dehumanization, because they have never grown to full humanity themselves. If the mother is at fault, why isn't it time to break the pattern by urging all these Sleeping Beauties to grow up and live their own lives? There never will be enough Prince Charmings or enough therapists to break that pattern now. It is society's job, and finally that of each woman alone. For it is not the strength of the mothers that is at fault but their weakness, their passive childlike dependency and immaturity that is mistaken for " femininity." Our society forces boys, insofar as it can, to grow up, to endure the pains of growth, to educate themselves to work, to move on. Why aren't girls forced to grow up - to achieve somehow the core of self that will end the unnecessary dilemma, the mistaken choice between femaleness and humanness that is implied in the feminine mystique? "
6 " While mass-media images of biological " males" feminizing themselves have the subversive potential to highlight ways conventionally defined femininity is artificial (a point feminists make all the time), the images rarely function this way. Trans women are both asked to prove their femaleness through superficial means and denied the status of " real" women because fo the artifice involved. After all, masculinity is generally defined by how a man behaves, while femininity is judged by how a woman presents herself.Thus, the media is able to depict trans women donning feminine attire and accessories without ever allowing them to achieve " true" femininity or femaleness. Further, by focusing on the most feminine of artifices, the media encourages the audience to see trans women as living out a sexual fetish. But sexualizing their motives for transitioning not only belittles trans women's female identities; it also encourages the objectification of women as a group....Thus...[this type of message] sexualizes the very concept of female identity and reduces all women (trans or otherwise) to mere feminine artifacts [ex. applying make-up, perfume, putting on jewelry]. "
