Black Women Must Choose: The Femininity Burden or The Masculinity Defense Mechanism...
Pick your oppression!
A couple of things need to be made abundantly clear….
Gender (especially femininity) is an oppressive social construct.
No one is born with a gender (behavior).
Performative femininity is a burden. It exists ONLY to please the observer…men. Women are burdened with the task of proving they are women through clothing, makeup, weight, etc and for what? Certainly not for themselves, but to be deemed acceptable to men. Needless to say….
I Choose To Reject Femininity. Why? Read on.
My experience and observations led me to believe that femininity wouldn’t save me. On one hand I witnessed Black women shut out of femininity although never womanhood as a whole, that’s for another write up. I also notice Black women who society embraces as beautiful and feminine, still experiencing racism from women AND men. She can’t get any job she wants or live where she wants or go to any school she wants without the possibility of racial hostility. If your heritage is similar to mine, having roots in the Jim Crow south, you may have heard that so called beauty and femininity would put a Black woman at risk of rape. Those were the Black women that Black folk did not want working as maids in white homes. To go even further, I see that beautiful and feminine women of all races are vulnerable to violence just like those that are not considered beautiful or feminine. There’s no need for femininity in my life.
I believe that masculinity and femininity are social constructs…not innate within us but something we are socialized into. I respect that many feminists, Black and white, embrace the word feminine but I also believe that women should be free to reject it no matter what context it is used in. There’s no need to wince when I refer to myself as unfeminine. I reject the social construct. There’s no need to gasp when I say I’m not beautiful. I reject being the subject of some man’s approval. I reject this approval regardless of the fact that Black women were denied it. Having said all of that, I know why some Black women crave it. Craving validation from men is a debilitating burden and I’d be lying if I said I don’t wish more Black women would reject that. These days I am more concerned about how I appear in front of women than men. It’s not all about clothes, hair, makeup or nails. It’s about authenticity. If I want to attract women to a divestment or radical feminist message, I must authentically live out the message. I don’t like the idea of telling women they can’t be feminists if they dye their hair, wear a dress, or even wear makeup. I acknowledge that Black women were excluded NOT from womanhood but from beauty ideals. But Black women that feel the need to embrace femininity should accept there are those of us that reject it. To me, femininity meant vulnerability. I don’t want to be vulnerable.
To me, femininity meant submission. I don’t want to submit.
To me, femininity reminds me of the physical dominance that Black men, White men, Asian men, Latino men, ALL men have over me.
To be honest, I don’t like it and I’d rather not think about it. This does not mean that I should embrace masculinity. It just means that Black women should be free to reject gender altogether and just be women.
Black Women and Masculinity as a defense mechanism
If you knew that you were unprotected in your community, wouldn’t you do what you could to discourage predators? A study conducted by Black women’s Blueprint of 300 women showed that 60% of Black women were sexually abused before the age of 18. Women are traumatized and masculinity is a defense mechanism, although in vain. A Black woman can present all the masculinity she wishes but it will not stop her from being victimized, whether sexually or otherwise. It should be clear to all of us that Black women could not escape womanhood no matter how hard we tried. It’s like trying to avoid Blackness.
“To me...” What you’re saying about femininity and masculinity isn’t merely your subjective opinion, personal to you, with other points of view equally true. What you are saying is simply, objectively true: Masculinity and femininity are dom-sub, master-slave. Thank you for stating facts!