"I was just checking, I thought you were a boy"
The perimeters of hegemonic femininity and what it takes to be a 'Normal Girl'
Hi everyone. My name is Adrienne. I am a girl.
Even typing those sentences feels ridiculous but, on multiple occasions, I have been mistaken as being a boy, so I think the disclaimer is needed.
These are some of my favourite experiences:
One of the first times I can recall this happening to me was in primary school. I had cainrows in my hair and was on my way to the bathroom during P.E. A teacher remarked that I was going the wrong way and the boys’ toilets were in another direction.
While entering the club at university, the male security guard attempted to search me. I was slightly tipsy so I didn’t register what was transpiring until my friend pulled me away and into the company of the female security guard which made me shout quite unceremoniously “I AM A GIRL.”
I went to Marrakech for my 21st birthday, and whilst in the club (again) I was in the women’s toilets. I kept receiving weird looks from one of the women in there. She didn’t speak English, but the cleaner caught on to her suspicion and eased it by gesturing to her own physique as her way of saying that I was a woman, not a man sneaking into the women’s toilets.
I was walking into the women’s changing room at the gym and caught an older woman staring at me intensely. I looked behind me, even though I knew no one was there, to confirm that she wasn’t staring past me. As I walked by her, she stopped me saying, “I was just checking, I thought you were a boy.”
My responses to these varied. Until the last occasion, I had always conjured some sort of flippant, smart response in my head. But they never translated vocally. Mainly because I hate attention, and any reaction outside of smiling awkwardly and murmuring would make the interaction protracted and keep the attention on me. The only evidence of any enmity on my part was the invisible blush painted across my cheeks and the sheepish demeanour I took on. But, internally, I used to be furious. I was irritated that my femininity was called into question and that is was done so embarrassingly, in public for others to poke and inspect it. An invitation for more people to place my identity under a sterile, bright white light and determine if I was feminine enough to fit into their definition of what a girl is when I was obviously a girl.
Hegemonic Femininity as a Performance
The last experience prompted me to consider the following questions. How can you distinguish between a man and a woman when you first look at them? What are the indicators of femininity?
I took this question to a small sample size (literally 4 people). I used Patricia Hill Collins’ framework of hegemonic femininity in Black Sexual Politics which defined it as having 3 main components: feminine appearance, feminine traits or demeanour and traditional gender role ideology. The question I asked “how can you tell an individual is a woman just by looking at them?”, elicited answers which fell into the first two categories – feminine appearance and feminine traits or demeanour.
I split feminine appearance into 2 sub-categories ‘natural’ and ‘cosmetic’. ‘Natural’ features included breasts and, interestingly, the absence of ‘masculine’ facial features such as no square jawline or facial hair. This was interesting to me because when discussing the otherness of women in The Second Sex (1949), Simone de Beauvoir argued that men identify themselves as men by the fact that they are not the ‘other’, who are women. However, in this instance, it seemed like the dynamic was being subverted, with feminine appearance being defined by the absence of a masculine appearance. Furthermore, what struck me was the attempt to present these identifiers as universal, that all women could be identified as feminine by lacking these ‘masculine’ features. When this was discussed further, the respondents acknowledged this, accepting that some women are born with what they deemed as ‘masculine’ features, such as women with PCOS or people that are born intersex.
The majority of the answers concerning feminine appearance fell into the ‘cosmetic’ category. Attributes such as manicured eyebrows and nails, eyelash extensions or long, flowing hair are examples of this. Another recurring answer was clothing, a specific emphasis was placed on there being clear differences between men and women’s clothing, even articles which appear unisex, ostensibly have subtle distinctions. For example, shorts, women’s shorts were defined as being shorter and tighter whilst men’s were longer and looser. But what was my intention behind this micro study? For me, I hold the belief that clothing is not, or rather, should not be gendered. Doing this research revealed some of my naivety. It showed me that as much as I wish it was not the case, aesthetics – especially clothing – is gendered. When I say gendered, I refer to it being both categorised as only appropriate for a man or woman as well as this categorisation being policed and staunchly upheld by others.
The philosopher Sandra Bartky succinctly described femininity as ‘an artifice, an achievement’. I agree, I think that hegemonic femininity, that is the idea that femininity is somehow universal and can only be expressed in a particular way, is constructed. It is not a natural phenomenon, it is something that we have created. And, like most concepts, it has an exclusive nature. The argument that femininity and by extension, gender, is created and performed is not a new argument on the sociological scene. de Beauvoir helped to set this as the general consensus in The Second Sex. She asserted that womanhood and femininity are social constructions; they look different across different time periods, regions and historical contexts – it is not a universal experience.
I share this sentiment, but I do not wish to recount the entirety of The Second Sex. What I want to focus on is the implication of hegemonic femininity being a performance. It is a concept that young girls are taught to aspire to, whilst simultaneously being lauded as something that comes naturally, a trait that one simply has to unlock. I believe it is far more complex than this. Femininity is artificial, it is constructed which requires those who engage in it to behave and present themselves in a specific manner. A young girl is not automatically able to harness and showcase her femininity. What femininity is and what it requires is something that is taught, transmitted via multiple discourses such as culture and religion. de Beauvoir speaks on this in The Second Sex with the ‘Myth of the Eternal Feminine’ in which she rejects the notion that there is a specific type of femininity that is an unchanging quality, present in all women.
This is why I find it ironic when proponents of hegemonic femininity complain that those who do not subscribe to the aesthetic demands of it are behaving in an ‘unnatural’ and ‘performative’ manner. Both groups conduct a performance, curating and wearing an identity that they deem as suitable for them. However, only the latter (those who do not conform to hegemonic femininity) are scrutinised for being ‘unnatural’ or ‘performative’. I suggest it’s because the latter are not legitimised, not in the way the former are. Supporters of hegemonic femininity are backed by cultural and religious discourses as well as historical context. Which leads many of them to reject the notion hegemonic femininity as an identity is just as constructed and performed as those who do not conform to such an identity. Choosing to step outside of that is not just simply a choice as I thought. It is viewed as a rebellion, an unfounded unnatural performance.
Ultimately, hegemonic femininity is predicated on ideas, there is not a concrete, intangible factor it stems from. We have accepted the differentiation between sex and gender. There is no choice but to, there are too many ‘what ifs’ and ‘buts’ to continue conflating biology and gender. Furthermore, the lines around gender, especially femininity, are so arbitrary. Where and how do we place people who fall in between? Who unintentionally and intentionally defy biological rules such as intersex people, transgender people and non-binary people. This leads me to my next point, exploring one of the lines surrounding femininity, which is race.
Femininity and Race: The Influence of Race on the Construction of Hegemonic Femininity
I play football, and have been competitively since at least Year 5. One time, whilst training with my local football team, we were playing a practice match with the boys team. We couldn’t have been more than 16. We were preparing for an offensive corner, one of the boys pointed at me and exclaimed “mark Juan Cuadrado”. In hindsight, it is quite funny for an abundance of reasons, the main one being, that besides being black and styling natural hair, Cuadrado and I had no striking resemblances. In the moment though, I felt a twitch of pain and vulnerability. It felt and sounded like ridicule. But, I rationalised it by saying things such as, “well we do have the same hairstyle”, “its only training anyway, when I’m dressed up I obviously don’t look like a boy”, and a slightly facetious, “Cuadrado has an afro, I have twists.”
It was early morning football training. I can safely say I, nor none of my teammates, looked like Princess Peach. Yet, I was the only one subjected to that line of ridicule, it is clear why. Me and my other teammate were the only black players and I was the only one that had my natural hair styled at the time. My natural features were conflated and judged as masculine.
Kathy Deliovsky raised an interesting point regarding race and hegemonic femininity. She stated that ‘white femininity is positioned as normative because it is not seen as white per se but rather as just femininity.’ What she explained is a reality for non-white woman in the West, that culture has placed white femininity as hegemonic femininity, the only permissible form of it. She declared there is a ‘hierarchy of racially coded degrees of femininity and beauty that culminate in normative definitions of white femininity’. But what does this mean?
Essentially, the conception of femininity, at least in the modern era has been sculpted around white women. The standards and demands placed on all women were created with only white women in mind. Try to recall narrations of femininity, particularly those with a strong coming of age theme for young women, in popular culture. The majority of the images centre on a white woman as the lead actress or protagonist. Deliovsky referred to this, she detailed an encounter with her 9 year old mixed race daughter who declared she wanted her hair to be “blonde and normal like the girls on TV”. Representations of femininity in popular culture and mainstream culture place white women as the apogee of femininity. The codes and rules we are instructed to adhere to were made with only a particular race of women in consideration. Elizabeth Cole and Alyssa Zucker remarked that the ‘concept of femininity has long been fraught for Black American women in particular because they have historically been treated as though they exist outside of its boundaries.’
I would go further than Cole and Zucker, to argue that this certainly applies to all black women in the Western world. From birth, black women exist on the fringes of hegemonic femininity, their race denies them direct access. To be able to engage with it, black women must operate within the stringent confines of hegemonic femininity which are inherently set against them anyway.
“Normal Girl, oh, oh, oh, oh. I wish I was a normal girl. I’ll never be, no, never be…”
SZA’s ‘Normal Girl’ featured on her 2017 album Ctrl illustrates the point I am making. When it gained traction on Tik Tok many non-white young women made posts about how the song had a special meaning to them because they grew up knowing that their race meant they did not fit into the mould of the ‘Normal Girl’. Whilst SZA languishes over not being a ‘Normal Girl’ because of her unhealthy behaviours with the subject of her romantic affections, many young non-white women interpreted it via a racial lens. They acknowledged they were not what society envisioned when conversations about girlhood, womanhood and femininity circulated. That it took developing their own personal relationship with and understanding of femininity to feel like they finally belonged underneath such a title.
This interpretation immortalises and codifies the interaction Deliovsky described with her young mixed race daughter. Even from the tender age of 9, her daughter recognised that the conceptions of a ‘normal girl’, and of femininity were not figures that looked like her. They were not standards that she could naturally reach, and she expressed her longing to be different to what she was born with, to be white with blonde hair because to her that was the only way you can be a ‘normal’, ‘natural’ girl.
The tensions between race and hegemonic femininity are why I was so disappointed by the outrage directed at the Algerian professional boxer, Imane Khelif, during the 2024 Summer Olympics. Especially when vitriol was hurled at her by non-white women. It was like having a front row seat to seeing cognitive dissonance unfold. The same physical features that were used to paint Khelif as some type of menacing imposter, endangering vulnerable white women have long been used against non-white women to suggest that they are innately more masculine than their white counterparts. As natural outsiders to hegemonic femininity, I thought that non-white women would understand that femininity does not have just one face and that it can appear in a variety of forms. But, unfortunately, this lesson was lost on many.
Where does this leave us?
This is not to say that white women are not restricted by hegemonic femininity either. I imagine it as a gilded cage, whilst being paraded as the arbiters of femininity they are also subjected to the demands of it, their race does not make them completely exempt.
Questioning hegemonic femininity and reinventing it for yourself is not a mere symptom of wokeness. To me, it is in all women’s interest, it’s a need for all women, particularly non-white women. Every time you call yourself ‘beautiful’ and ‘feminine’ as a non-white woman, you are pushing the boundaries and reshaping the borders of hegemonic femininity. Creating a vision of femininity for yourself which exists outside of white skin, shining blonde hair, saccharine blue eyes and a slim physique is an attack on hegemonic femininity. It places you in a sort of alliance with queer women. Women who are also knocking at the door, questioning the concept of what it means to be a woman, what it looks like and what femininity means to them.
Analysing and deconstructing the world around us requires us to reevaluate concepts that are treated as fixed such as femininity. This is why I think the presentation of femininity should continue to be more personal, determined by the individual. Both, masculinity and femininity are regarded in absolutes; I think that is something we should definitely change. I hope this post has demonstrated that femininity, specifically in terms of appearance, is not universal and other factors such as race mean that it will never be. Even biology means that we do not have a universal sense of femininity. I think the energy we devote to being arbiters of gender expression and presentation can be redirected to something far more useful such as evaluating and reforming our definitions of these concepts.
Helpful Readings:
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)
Elizabeth R. Cole and Alyssa N. Zucker, ‘Black and White Women’s Perspectives on Femininity’ (2007)
Kathy Deliovsky, ‘Normative White Femininity: Race, Gender and the Politics of Beauty’ (2008)
An amazing read!
This was great, you have a way with words!