Feminine Softness in a ‘Man’s World’.

Feminine Softness in a ‘Man’s World’.

Men are my favorite people.

I love women as I love myself and I wish to connect to other feminine creatures. I delight in my own softness and I long to recognize it in the women around me.

The love I feel for women is a very different sort of love than the love I feel for men. My love for the masculine is strong, earthy and utterly tempestuous in its nature. It’s also unreasonable and pure.

My friends and followers on Facebook may be aware of my feelings when it comes to men and their admiration of feminine beauty, feminine presence. On several occasions, I have mentioned that I would never shame a man for uttering this admiration. No matter how “racy” their praise and its way of conduct may get, I would never wrong a man for admiring the feminine, and how it is beautifully symbolized in our female flesh.

While some may call it superficial, vain or even misogynist. I disagree, emotionally and strongly. When a man expresses his admiration I do not feel objectified, used or looked at as “less” because I do not believe I am less, or that my body and sensuality are dirty. And thus I see it as one of nature’s most beautiful and useful expressions and receive it as pure poetry.

When expressing my love of the feminine and masculine, I do not wish to focus on social inequality, social conditioning and the laws and rights ascribed or (historically) denied to women. But in my first blog-exploration of the feminine in the masculine world I do want to spend a little attention to it, so here I go:

In no way do I want to trivialize the triumphs of the first, and in part, the second feminist waves. As a woman living today I can only be grateful that certain social inequalities have been corrected and that we have been set free from these cages of social restraint, a feat greatly attributed to the passion and courage of these women before us that should be applauded with nothing less than admiration and gratitude.

I understand that in order for these courageous women to fight for their – and our – rights they had to connect with their masculine sides in order to battle, to make a physical change to social wrongs, to “fight fire with fire”, so to speak.

And yet I can’t help but feel that ever since the second feminist wave, women have somehow been locked away in an entirely new cage…

What’s worse, it is a self-imposed cage. A cage I will call the masculine mask: an unfortunate side-effect that remains lingering long after the marvelous accomplishments of the feminist movement. As women took on the masculine roles to make a change and remove themselves from these social inhibiting cages, they lost sight of what makes femininity valuable and so very much-needed in a man’s world. It seems to me that this balance has never been restored, making it so that many women today walk around with this protective masculine mask, hiding away their most valuable feminine traits, because somewhere along the way they got confused with weakness. And this is a development that I greatly mourn.

The dreamy feminine is the haven the masculine aspires to sail onto. A sentiment best depicted by Greek Poet Homer. In his ‘Odyssey’ he speaks of the masculine represented in Odysseus, who spends ten long years roaming the seas to find his way home to his wife Penelope, their son and his mother country after winning the Trojan war and securing safety for his family and fellow countrymen and women.

Would it surprise you that James Brown’s ‘It’s a man’s world’ is one of my very favorite songs? After reading this, probably not…

When reading the lyrics, you will see how it relates to my views expressed here.

“This is a man’s world, this is a man’s world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

You see, man made the cars to take us over the road
Man made the train to carry heavy load
Man made electric light to take us out of the dark
Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark

This is a man’s, a man’s, a man’s world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

Man thinks about little baby girls and baby boys
Man makes them happy ’cause man makes them toys
And after man make everything, everything he can
You know that man makes money to buy from other man

This is a man’s world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

He’s lost in the wilderness
He’s lost in bitterness”

In the center of this man-made world, the world of conquest, discovery and development rests the languorous world of beauty, warmth, reflection and love. All beautiful, desirable and honorable qualities.

It is time women dare take off their masculine masks to expose their inspirational, soft and feminine selves again. The world and its male inhabitants need us like the earth’s plants need rain to blossom fully and healthily.

Because I feel so very much about this subject I will dedicate a different post to this masculine mask in the near future…

In the meanwhile, If you are looking for feminine inspiration why don’t you read more about The Hedonist Woman here

Love,

BB

(Image Source: Bathing Beauties by Norman Linsday, 1000 Lives by Dior Homme, Ulysses and the Sirens by John William Waterhouse)