I’ve never felt like I was quite good enough at being a girl. I have three brothers, which means that table etiquette, beauty maintenance, and the color pink were rarely on the forefront of my mind while growing up. As an eight year old, my teenage brothers were my biggest role models and I constantly tried to imitate them. As a result, I was placed into the “tomboy” category for most of my childhood. It wasn’t until seventh grade that I began to realize that most girls didn’t wear gym shorts outside of gym class and that, while I was most concerned with basketball, other girls were concerned about boys.
I quickly became hyper-aware of my lack of “girlish” personality traits and decided that it was time to learn how to be a “real girl.” I started with makeup. My brothers teased me mercilessly when they found out that I had started wearing mascara, but I was unphased. I was determined to be the best girl possible. Next came floral skirts, pretty underwear, and the rehearsal of a perfectly coy giggle to replace my typical snort laugh.
This persona didn’t last long for me. While I loved dressing up, wearing makeup, and daydreaming about the cute boys in class, it always felt uncomfortable for me to pretend to be “well-mannered” and “put together” all the time. In my mind, femininity meant being elegant, classy, and, to a certain extent, domesticated and tame. These are words that I would never use to describe myself.
As I grew older, I grew into my personality. It no longer bothered me that I snorted when I laughed or that my nail polish was always chipped. As I grew older, my definition of femininity changed. I looked at my mom, at my grandma, at my teachers and realized that I had it all wrong.
What makes a woman feminine isn’t her table manners. It’s not her ability to gracefully flirt, and it’s certainly not her ability to cook or clean. The things that are feminine go beyond what the eyes can see. Femininity is the ability to truly care about other people. Femininity is standing in solidarity with other women. It’s the ability to empathize or sympathize with someone, no matter what they’re going through. It’s a set of beautiful traits that every feminine-identifying person gets to decide for themselves.
Today, I am loud and messy. I swear like a sailor, and the last time I tried to cook a meal, I nearly burned the house down. I don’t always have the best manners, although I do say please and thank you. I never know which fork to use at a fancy restaurant, and my flirting skills could use some work. But if I could go back in time to talk to my seventh-grade self, I would tell her not to worry. I would tell her that she is already feminine enough because femininity is anything she wants it to be, and that one day, she would grow into the best version of herself, even if it’s nothing like she imagined.