Feminine-ism

I call myself a femininitist. That’s not a misspelling of feminist. As I’ve said before, I’m all about equal rights for men and women. I believe we should all have the ability to make choices for ourselves about what we want to do with our lives. I do not, however, believe that women need to become men to achieve equality of the sexes. Too many people seem to equate being equal to mean “the same”. Men and women are not the same, and that’s okay! We have equal value as a person. We have equal rights. We have more similarities than differences, really. Personally, I love men and masculinity. I’m not talking about the guy who can bench press 800 pounds, degrades others, picks fights, and treats women like objects to be used and abused. I mean real, healthy, sexy, masculinity. A man who knows he can take care of business. A man who can and will do whatever it takes to protect others, but also has self control and doesn’t have to be a dick to get control of a situation. I’ve seen Adam deescalate plenty of almost fights. If a man hurt me or threatened me, I have no doubt Adam would knock him to the ground if he had to, but I love the quiet strength he exudes. Violence isn’t the go to option. It’s a last resort. If it’s necessary, he will absolutely put himself in harms way to protect those he cares about. The word masculinity has gotten a bad rep and that seriously bothers me. People are lumping all men together as if they’re all violent, sexist, heartless unless they denounce their manhood in favor of more feminine behaviors and attitudes. You need to be more like women, men and boys are being told.

On the flip side, girls and women are being taught that we need to act like men. Fight the patriarchy! Resist any man who tries to pay for your dinner, open your door for you, offers to help lift something heavy…Any sign of masculinity from a man is shunned. If a woman gets loud, bossy, threatens to punch your lights out, objectifies men, treats them as second class, that’s not only encouraged, it’s celebrated! We seem to be taking these stereotypes of truly toxic behavior generalized as masculinity and trying to emulate those characteristics as women. These are not desirable traits in a man or a woman.

If we could just embrace our own feminine powers and realize that we can do so much more to achieve success in our lives if we accept and use our uniquely feminine attributes and abilities, we could do anything! Men want to make us happy. I read about this type of bird who will work and work to build the most beautiful nest to attract his mate. He finds shiny pieces of foil and string to decorate the nest with. If, after some time has passed, no mate has shown interest in his nest, he will tear it down and start all over. Ladies, men are so much like those birds. They want to please us! Understand and use their desire to make us happy instead of insulting and degrading them for it. Masculine and feminine are ying and yang. We work beautifully together. I call myself a femininitist because I love femininity. I can’t open the pickle jar, lift that heavy box, or pee standing up, but I can grow our beautiful babies in my belly and then feed them with my own body. I beat my husband at scrabble every single time. Adam asks me for help writing a paper because he knows I’m a spelling and grammar queen. He brings home the bacon, I fry it up. Of course, this is not the way all men and women would like to live out their marriage, and that’s okay too. As for me though, I’m a femininitist.