Open Letter: Dear Femme

[Kosmo]

Originally Posted by evolveme

I love what you're saying here, and it's important to me too. I don't want to get caught in the trap of negative stereotyping, especially not of other feminine people.

But I posted earlier about how female and feminine people are socialized to "be good" (so that they are more easily controlled and thus more palatable to male/masculine others) and how this is so overwhelming that it forces natural tendencies to aggression into what is termed relational aggression.

You can witness these types of behaviors as early as kindergarten, even pre-school.

Girls will gather and isolate. They will shun and gossip. They will punish one another by way of social mechanisms (you can even see these behaviors displayed among certain gay male groups). It takes a strong sensibility and a compassionate heart to avoid these behaviors, because they too are heavily socialized.

ETA: I think it's much more useful to understand it than to rage about the tendency.

Originally Posted by blush

I'm not sure what you mean by pointing out that gay male groups do this as well?

Originally Posted by SuperFemme

I think that just as women encompass masculine traits, men emcompass feminine traits. That was my read on it.

Not sure either. I read it as certain gay male group behaviors = shun and gossip. Shunning and gossiping can hardly be a female only trait. Maybe it's thread topic specific. From my experience and perspective, males gossip just as much if not more (they have more opportunity for it; again, my experience only). Females seem to engage more in comparison discussions (I am in position at work to overhear a lot *where's my iPod?*) . As for shunning, not really sure. I've had experience to be shunned by both female traited and male traited people.