ON ACCEPTING FEMININITY

One of the problems that is paramount in the adjustment of the Lesbian is the acceptance of her "femininity". Now what do we mean by "femininity"? Unfortunately, this term is so vague and uncertain that it has been used to describe every kind of definition of womankind, and to support the rankest superstitions of our times.

Were we to describe femininity as merely a sex-membership, rather than a limitation on our humanity, most of us would have no trouble in accepting our womanhood. But in as much as "femininity" involves to some 80 many alleged and negative trait: a such as lack of courage, originality and intelligence, it is against this specific concept that so many Lesbians revolt.

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Curiously enough, when a Lesbian (or as often a heterosexual woman) adopts a masculine complex, we find that she is very selective in the so-called masculine traits she accepts. She may want to mimic a "clean-out" man, or a calm, quiet refined man, while at the same time rejecting what she calls the objectionable features of the opposite sex. There's no fault in a woman wanting to be clean-cut, dignified or courageous; but the error is the assumptiản that these qualities are the monopoly of the male sex. The anthropologist Margaret Mead has some pertinent comments to make on this subject in her book "Male and Female".

"Most children take maleness or femalenesc as their first identification of themselves. But once the identification is made, the growing child then begins to compare itself not only in physique, but even more importantly in impulse and interest with those about it. 'I am a girl, but I am fleet of foot and love to run and jump. Running and leaping are for boys, not girls.' So the child, experiencing itself is forced to reject such parts of it s particular biological inheritance as conflict sharply with the sex stereotype of it a culture."

How realistic are our present sex stereotypes? Un

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