having difficulty with femininity and presentation (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by thumbtack@beehaw.org to c/lgbtq_plus@beehaw.org

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hey beehaw team :) this is partly advice seeking and partly just wanting to share my experience and hopefully hear how others feel about he topic. i’m not sure if this is the right community for this either, but hopefully it is!

i’m a cis woman who’s always been a fair bit interested in both femininity and androgyny for my hair and clothing, but lately i’ve been feeling more of a pull than usual to present in a more masculine/butch leaning way. to the point where i’m even considering trying out binding, which i’ve never really thought about before.

i’m a bit conflicted though about all of this, because i do know i have some internalized misogyny regarding femininity being inferior to masculinity. i’m having difficulty telling if i’d like to present more masc because i think femininity is stupid/not cool, or if it’s something i actually want.

does anyone have any advice/thoughts to share about this? i don’t really have anyone irl i can talk to about this, so any input would be really appreciated <3

to be clear, i am not questioning my gender here. i like and use she/her pronouns and am not interested in any others.

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[-] thumbtack@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

see, what makes me think it could be internalized misogyny driving this feeling is that i find myself thinking about how some of my female friends are stupid/vapid for not wanting to be associated with masculinity at all, which is definitely an issue. i feel weirdly… insecure in my masculinity, i think, but being a woman makes that definitely an odd thing to think.

i’m still pretty obviously working through it hahaha, but i think that regardless of what could be driving me, experimentation is probably a good idea.

[-] socialgaff@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Looking at what you've said here and elsewhere on the thread, I'd say that at worst, you're dealing with processing socially imbedded roles and assumptions. I can't speak to much more than USian culture, but there's a strong association between masculinity and 'coolness' and with femininity and soft 'airheadedness'. Not getting why people wouldn't want to be cool is a reasonable hang up, and a good thing to know about yourself. Putting practice into holding the idea that "just because I don't understand it doesn't make it wrong" is pretty much the path forward there. For exploration on ways you may want to express, I'm not a fan of tiktok as a platform, but there's a ton of "mascgirl" fashion there. It's cool, primarily street wear looks, being worn by people proud to be GNC women and girls. It does seem to be a pretty not-straight space, but it isn't like a requirement.