Why we need to look at Toxic Femininity

I was having a discussion on Facebook (as one does), in the comments section of a meme with a friend of mine recently. The discussion was around: Why do women hate their step kids, but want the step father to love her biological kids.

I had the words toxic femininity pop into my head... Imagine my surprise when I found that it's already a term! The definition according to Urban Dictionary is: 

"A social science term that describes narrow repressive type of ideas about the female gender role, that defines femininity as exaggerated feminine traits like being sensitive, emotional, having a perfect appearance, and so forth. One can be feminine without being toxic."

To me it's so much more than the examples given on Urban Dictionary though (those examples in a nutshell is like hitting your boyfriend, and then if he wants to hit back saying you can't because I'm a woman; and women doing the mean girls gossip thing). It's the need to be right no matter what because I'm female. It's the need to have hair extensions, false nails, perfect makeup, and be the "popular girl" no matter how mean that makes me. It's playing games with relationships to force proof of love. It's playing games with the emotions of others. It's bordering on narcissistic type behaviour. Shallow, beauty queen types who see others as props in their drama.

It's creating a stereotype of a gender that girls and women are falling into. Like the hashtag we see flying around for toxic masculinity we need to wake up that women can - and are - just as possible of toxicity.

Where did this all come from? Why have we forgotten that we are looking for a life partner in relationships (not a person to fit a role). Why have we forgotten that the friendships we form are better if no-one is playing games? 

The airy fairy folk have it right. If you go to one of their gatherings (like a drumming circle if you want a tame introduction) you will see people laughing, hugging, and being real. You won't see women hitting their boyfriends, turning noses up at new comers until their social status has been proven. You won't see men getting aggressive because they've had a couple of brewskies and he's sure the other oke was checking out his chick. You might enjoy it! You'll definitely be welcomed so genuinely that you'll probably go back.

These are the people who have done the work on their emotions. These are the people who practice the "We are one" way of thinking. They know that we are all the same, and no one is better than the other based on their gender, what they do, or where they come from.

These are the people who look for, and create, balance in their lives. 

Balance is an interesting term. Best described by the beloved yin/yang. The balance of evil and good, darkness and light, male and female...

The yin/yang male and female balance does not require one to be more prominent than the other. It allows for male and female to be just as important, and just as irrelevant. It shows us that there is a mix of masculine in the feminine, and feminine in the masculine. It shows us that is the way it should be.

So how do we correct this? How do we change? Pretty easy in my mind (but then I'm special - in many senses of the word). We honour our differences. We remember that fighting for equality means that as equals we do not have special rights because we are female. THAT is equality. 

We honour the masculine and the feminine for the two aspects of creation that they are, seeking neither to change nor label that aspect.

It goes back in many ways to my second post from 6 Jan - I See You. 


It's about looking beyond the physical and seeing the human inside. Once we remember that we are all human, and that we are all souls having a human experience, maybe we'll drop the toxicity and move towards harmony.

May harmony find you!