When Femininity Becomes a Bad Word

I’m over at The Better Mom today talking about “When Femininity Becomes a Bad Word” and what that means in our marriages. Here’s the intro:

I smoothed the soft lines of my favorite lilac suit jacket as I returned to my seat. As a second-semester graduate student studying television producing, it had been my task to pitch a script to my classmates. Once I’d finished, my female professor kicked off her comments with, “Your suit is too feminine.”

Twelve years later, it’s the only feedback I remember from that day: That my femininity – my femaleness – was something to shy away from and mask if I wanted to succeed in this field.

And perhaps it’s true. After all, it was spoken by a woman who’d come to her professorship with at least a decade of on-the-set experience.

That day, in that classroom, in that Christian graduate school, femininity had become a bad word.

What I also remember, though, is that I left the classroom that afternoon determined. Not determined to donate my suit to Goodwill, but determined to continue wearing it. Determined to not lose sight of the fact that I was, as David wrote in the Psalms, “fearfully and wonderfully made,” and this included my God-given femininity. That it wasn’t something to mask or shy away from, but to embrace.

I didn’t go on to pursue television producing as a career. But I did go on to get married and produce four little girls.

And here’s what I’m realizing: Our culture tells us the same thing when it comes to our marriages. That our femininity – the unique way we are different from our husbands – isn’t something to celebrate. Rather it’s something to fight against. Because embracing it? Well, that makes us not equal to the task. Weak. Less. Doormats, even.

Read the rest of the post and leave me a comment here at The Better Mom.