You Are Not Feminine Enough And It Is Embarrassing

What is annoying me today? I’ll tell you. Our society tries to make women feel bad for having aggressive personalities. If you’re a girl with a lot of energy, you will relate to this. You speak in public and someone tries to shush you or tells you to calm down because they think you’re being too loud. But you’re literally chill the whole time and not the least bit aggressive. More often than once, you may have left a person, or a place, or a gathering feeling very embarrassed because someone pointed out to you that you were being loud. Or harsh. Or aggressive. And women aren’t supposed to be that way.

Women are supposed to be soft, and feminine, and soft-spoken. But you’re not these things. So something has to be wrong with you.

There is actually research showing how much our ideas about femininity shape the way we hear women. In one study involving 555 people, researchers found that the stereotype of the “angry Black woman” could negatively affect how Black women were perceived at work. Other research has found that women with more feminine-sounding voices can be judged differently on competence and warmth. We are literally being taught to hear women through the lens of femininity. Every year, women throw thousands of dollars at femininity coaches to learn how to be softer and feminine. To speak with a feminine purr and to look docile for the male gaze. Isn’t all of that exhausting?

So what if your voice is loud? So what if you have a lot of energy that is uncharacteristic for a woman? Who decided what is characteristic and what is not?

Free yourself from all of that performance of femininity, child. There is nothing wrong with you. After you have freed yourself, start fighting back instead of cowering in shame every time someone points out to you that your behavior is not feminine enough or less than ideal.

When they say you’re too loud, look them in the eye and say: “This is my voice. This is how I talk. If it’s too loud for you, you should put some distance between you and me.”

You are enough. You are okay just the way that you are. Stop trying to squeeze yourself into their made-up box. There is no script for femininity. There is no correct or wrong way to be a woman. You are the way that you are. You didn’t make yourself this way.

Stop apologizing to these people.