Effects Of Demonization Of Femininity

As my friends and I enter through Walgreen’s automatic door, the very first thing that captures our attention is the long, extensive make-up aisle right near us. We all ran to admire the wide variety of cosmetics that were offered to us. I kept on thinking what exactly I wanted to buy first. Just then, we noticed a group of boys from the next aisle snickering and pointing at us. At first, I had no idea what they were making such a commotion over until I noticed that they were pointing to all of the lipstick that I was carrying in my arms. It seemed that they considered the idea of a group of people making such big deal over makeup to be completely ridiculous. I couldn’t exactly hear all of their mumbling, but one thing that clearly stood out …show more content…
This is also the same reason why demonization of femininity also has a relation with homophobia. “There’s this conflation of being a gay man with being feminine, which is in fact not true. Just as there are feminine gay men or masculine lesbians, there are also plenty of masculine gay men and feminine lesbians,” MacGillivray says. Even though there are men who ideally want to be as masculine as possible, in reality, they actually need to have femininity in their life as well in order to find a balance. One of the primary reasons why more men should accept femininity into their life is because it’ll be more beneficial for their mental health. Masculinity can become extremely damaging to mental health because it forces men and boys to feel only one type of emotion; anger. This benefactor has caused men to have a higher percentage in stress related illness, death at a younger age, and so on. On the contrary, femininity allows women and girls to feel any other emotion besides …show more content…
Although gender expression and identity are two separate things, they can still cross with one another very often. One UNI student and activist who wishes to stay anonymous struggled with her gender identity and gender expression due to being transgender. It wasn’t until after high school where she “A significant turning point for me was starting college, because I was living on my own, surrounded by open minded people, had an LGBT community, and I felt much freer to explore my gender identity and expression than growing up in my small town.” she said. Confusion naturally occurs when thinking about both gender expression and identity, which shouldn’t stir you away. “I would say as advice that it 's okay to be confused, to not be sure about your identity, and to need time and space to explore who you are.” she