Femininity

This was my tweet on femininity.

"Some girly girls wear ribbons and bows. Other girly girls wear hard hats or bullet-proof vests." What I meant was, let's stop defining femininity so narrowly. That's not incendiary, is it? Just food for thought.

The tweet I got back from a stranger:

"DON'T BE SO $#%&!@ SENSITIVE." Except the symbols were a real word. I won't quote it. 

Well. We are not at cotillion anymore, are we? Because of the spirit in which the tweet was sent, I declined to respond. But what if the expletive had been omitted? What if the sender had respectfully disagreed with my point? Then I would have said this.

It matters how we define femininity and masculinity. To say women are only about ribbons and bows is to say that women with hard hats are not real women at all. And men in professions traditionally filled by women are not real men. Fortunately, these views are changing. By and large, men who are nurses or elementary school teachers are not ridiculed. Neither are men who strap an infant into a Baby Bjorn and go shopping. And we are getting used to seeing women in traditionally male roles.

What we see is important, especially as children, because if we see something enough, we begin to accept it as right. If something IS right, it's good to accept it as right.

Of course, if something is wrong, let's call it wrong.

But please use expletives sparingly when doing so. Tweets are short. Don't waste any of your 140 characters on $#%&@!