Can femininity ever be defined?

Ask five people what makes a woman feminine and you are unlikely to get the same answer twice. Femininity can mean softness and vulnerability to one person, independence and confidence to another. For some, it is visible in the way a woman dresses or carries herself. For others, clothes have almost nothing to do with it. Yet underneath these different definitions is a question women have been negotiating for generations: how much of femininity is something women naturally identify with, and how much of it is something they have been taught to perform? For Yasaman, femininity is partly emotional. She associates it with vulnerability and being comfortable expressing that she needs or wants something.

“When I feel like I’m being feminine, it’s like I’m admitting that I need something or that I want something in a way that’s vulnerable,” she said, adding that it also means being communicative about her emotions. But even defining femininity this way made her hesitate. She said she sometimes feels that she has “more masculine” qualities inside her, revealing how easily traits can still be divided into two categories: strength and independence on one side, vulnerability and femininity on the other.

Her own upbringing complicated those categories further. Yasaman’s mother deliberately pushed her daughters away from traditional ideas of femininity. She emphasized strength and work and rejected toys and media she believed portrayed women as helpless. Yasaman was not encouraged to play with dolls or wear makeup, and her mother would not let her watch Barbie or even Disney films for that reason. Today, Yasaman does not see ambition or strength as contradictory to femininity.

You can be ambitious and strong and still be feminine. You can wear pink and lace and be Legally Blonde, right?

Is femininity something you can see?

Despite rejecting strict gender roles, Yasaman still believes femininity can have a physical expression. She associates feminine clothing with softer silhouettes that complement the body and lighter colors, while acknowledging that these associations exist partly because that is how femininity has traditionally been marketed to her. Others drew a much firmer line between appearance and femininity. When Chadi was asked whether an independent woman who does everything herself is less feminine, his answer was simply no.

Asked whether oversized or less traditionally feminine clothing changes that, his answer remained the same. For him, femininity is more connected to behavior, manners and how someone treats others than what she wears. Justin similarly described femininity as a combination of elegance and softness, but was careful to distinguish softness from weakness. “It’s a mixture of elegance. It’s a mixture of softness, but not weakness,” he said. In his definition, a woman can be capable and successful while remaining feminine. What matters more is how she carries herself. He associated femininity with elegance, manners and respect, and said he would not view rudeness as feminine.

Even when pushed on whether provocative clothing makes a woman less feminine, Justin resisted directly connecting the two. A woman, he argued, could dress provocatively and still be feminine because femininity ultimately depends more on her character and behavior than her clothes. The distinction is revealing. Women are often taught that femininity is visible, something communicated through dresses, colors, makeup, hair and body language. Yet when people are asked to define it more precisely, clothing quickly becomes insufficient.

Does femininity need masculinity?

One of the more complicated definitions came from Lynn, who described femininity as something that can emerge through relationships with men. For her, it can involve allowing a male partner to take initiative or make certain decisions rather than feeling responsible for handling everything herself. When asked directly whether a woman's femininity can depend partly on a man's masculinity, she agreed. This does not mean she believes women are incapable of doing things themselves. In fact, she explicitly said a woman can handle things alone.

Rather, her definition suggests that femininity can sometimes involve choosing not to occupy every role when someone else is there to take responsibility. She also associated feminine appearance with traditionally feminine clothing and aesthetics. It is an idea that sits almost directly opposite another definition offered by Nayla.

For Nayla, femininity begins with having an identity that does not depend on anybody else. “She needs to be confident,” she said. “Confident in who she is and what she believes in.” In her definition, a feminine woman knows what she wants and does not wait for someone else to define her identity.

Yet Nayla’s definition goes beyond individual confidence. She also associates femininity with how women treat other women. She described being a “girl’s girl” as particularly feminine: supporting other women rather than competing with them, refusing to be jealous of their success and avoiding judging women for the paths they choose. “Women get enough hate in general,” she said, arguing that women need to support and “have someone have their back.”

Who actually defines femininity?

If people have such different ideas about femininity, the bigger question becomes: who decided what was feminine in the first place? The interviews suggest ideas about femininity are learned through families, relationships, media, fashion and the expectations people grow up around. Even when someone believes their definition is personal, it can be difficult to separate individual preference from what they have been taught a woman is supposed to look or behave like. Yasaman recognized this directly when discussing clothing.

She associates lighter colors and softer silhouettes with femininity, but acknowledged that this is partly because femininity has been “traditionally marketed” to her that way. Her childhood also shows how parents can shape these ideas in the opposite direction. Her mother intentionally rejected traditional femininity, emphasizing strength and work while discouraging dolls, makeup and films that portrayed women as helpless.

But family is only one influence. Romantic relationships can shape femininity too. Lynn described feeling feminine partly through allowing a male partner to take initiative, suggesting that femininity can sometimes be understood in relation to masculinity rather than as an entirely independent identity.

Put together, these definitions reveal something important: femininity is not created in isolation. What feels “naturally” feminine can be influenced by what someone watched growing up, how their parents raised them, what clothing was marketed toward girls, how men and women were expected to behave around each other, and what their wider social environment rewarded or criticized.

That also explains why femininity can change between generations and even between two people raised in the same society. There is no universal authority deciding that softness is feminine, independence is masculine, or a particular dress makes someone more of a woman. These meanings are repeatedly taught, challenged and rewritten. Perhaps, then, the more revealing question is not what defines femininity, but who has been given the power to define it.

The contradiction at the center of femininity

There may never be one definition of femininity. Across these conversations, it meant softness and vulnerability to some, confidence and independence to others, and for some, a balance between the two. Even something as simple as clothing became difficult to define: a woman can dress femininely, but what she wears does not necessarily determine whether she is feminine.

These ideas do not appear out of nowhere. They are shaped by families, relationships, media, fashion and the expectations people grow up around. Yet they are also constantly challenged and rewritten as women decide which expectations still make sense to them. Perhaps that is why defining femininity remains so difficult. It is no longer simply a checklist of how a woman should dress, speak or behave.

The people interviewed disagree on almost every detail, but their answers repeatedly return to the same idea: femininity is increasingly understood as something a woman can define for herself rather than something she has to prove to everyone else.