Do Men Actually Like Women, or Just the Performance of Femininity?

This might come as a shock to some, but adult women have body hair. And sometimes, a lot of it.

Adult women also don't have flat stomachs - we need the extra padding to protect our reproductive organs.

We don't have baby smooth skin. Our skin starts losing elasticity around the age of 25. Our thighs and buttocks have cellulite, which is perfectly normal, and women of all sizes and shapes have it.

And the list goes on and on.

Of course, we can take steps to 'fix' things about our body and face that don't exactly fit in with the societal standards of how a woman ought to look like.

We can shave our legs, arms, armpits, pubic area, and whatever else needs shaving. We can go to the gym and work on our abs. We can use dozens of skincare products to keep our skin as smooth as possible or get botox to get rid of wrinkles. We can buy expensive treatments to eliminate cellulite.

But if we don't do any of the above, if we remain in our natural, adult woman state, we're often perceived as less feminine and, by extension, less attractive. In particular, by men. Which makes me wonder: do men even like adult women, or just the performance of femininity that we engage in?

The femininity dance we all learn

We all learn femininity. It's not an innate part of who we are, regardless of how much we insist that it is. From early on in our lives, we are taught how to act and look like because we are women.

This is what psychologists refer to as the performance of femininity.

It's a never-ending stage act in which your whole existence becomes an act of willing an idealized version of femininity into reality. Just think about it - how often do you as a woman consider where your ideas about what constitutes your best self come from, and just how deeply others have shaped it?

We don't come out of the womb in heels and with a full face of makeup on, but as we grow up, we learn that we will be a 'better' version of ourselves if we do certain things. We will be more feminine. More attractive. And we will get better treatment in society if we do a good job at performing femininity. The same thing goes for men - to fit into society, they need to learn to behave 'like a man'.

And that includes not only the physical aspects I talked about in the introduction - it's also our body language, choice of words, and the way we behave.

Women are taught to be polite, passive, submissive, take up as little space as possible, and cross their legs. To be the caretakers (in other words: provide free labor). To always smile and be cheerful.

But above all else - we are taught that being physically attractive will be rewarded in society. If we only comply with those near-impossible and, quite frankly, problematic beauty standards, everything in our lives will fall into place.

And that's sadly still true to some extent today.

The thing is - performing femininity is exhausting and problematic

Being a woman is a lot of work. In particular, if we perform femininity in appropriate ways. It surely can be something that we have learned to enjoy at times, but it is still work.

I rarely do look feminine these days. Most of the time, I wear sporty clothing, sneakers, and no makeup. I don't wear bras (I have the privilege of not having boobs). I don't shave often. I never do my nails. Could you mistake me for a teenage boy? Most likely, yes.

But it doesn't mean I don't take care of myself. I exercise regularly, eat relatively well and have good personal hygiene habits. Although still, none of these makes me more feminine.

If I wanted to tick all the boxes on the physical femininity wish list, it would take me a lot of money, time, and effort. Sure, it's not that hard - albeit it takes a good few hours - to put on a full face of makeup, a dress, and do my hair. But if I wanted to go an extra mile and shave everywhere, get a flat stomach, a cellulite-free bum, and heaven knows what else (perhaps some boobs?), then yes - getting there would be arguably tricky and expensive. And not to mention possibly damaging to my mental health.

Or I could just turn back the clock - I used to fit that description, more or less, when I was a teenager. And that's because feminine beauty standards are not based on how adult women look; instead, they are based on how little girls look. It wasn't always like that, as what we consider attractive in both men and women changes across times, but it certainly is now.

Somewhere along the way, we equated the physical characteristics of little girls with femininity. And we have big industries like beauty or media to thank for that.

Gender performativity hurts men, too

As I've already mentioned, men are also conditioned to behave in a certain way to fit into what society considers 'masculine.' And that certainly has its negative repercussions too.

Although I'd argue that the physical expectations for men are not nearly as insane and problematic as they are for women. If I were a man and continued taking care of myself as I do now, I can't help but feel I'd probably be one of the better taken care of men out there. But because I'm not a man, and I need to do dozens of other things to present feminine, I could even be perceived as 'lazy' by some.

Physical attractiveness aside, men get penalized for straying from masculine norms the most when it comes to the way they act. Even when they engage in positive behavior - such as showing vulnerability, acting nicer, displaying empathy, expressing sadness, exhibiting modesty, or proclaiming to be feminists.

And because of those negative stereotypes, men are less likely than women to go to therapy or take medication to improve their mental health. And they are more likely to commit suicide or abuse substances.

Gender stereotypes really serve no one.

So, do men even like women?

In the same way we were conditioned to behave in a particular manner based on our gender assigned at birth; we were also conditioned to assess the attractiveness of the opposite gender based on how 'masculine' or 'feminine' they present.

Similar to some animals which use mating tactics, like dancing or creating symmetrical patterns in the sand (that's pufferfish, actually), we might do our little 'femininity' or 'masculinity' dance to attract mates. And it makes sense - first impressions matter, and we are, like all primates, highly visual and perceptive creatures. This might be, of course, less true for queer people, who often break away from gender-based stereotypes.

But do people stay together solely based on how well their partner performs on their assigned gender scale? I highly doubt that that's true anymore.

Men might be drawn to us at first because of the performance of femininity since they are conditioned to find that attractive, but it's who we are as people that makes them stay with us, and vice versa. And this is how I believe genuine relationships should work.

Although I'm sure, there are some more 'traditional', and possibly religious, couples out there who insist on carrying on with this feminine and masculine mascarade for as long as they live. Which, if you consider how much stricter gender roles used to be in the twentieth century, makes sense. It's tough to unlearn these unconscious biases.

Final thoughts

With all of that being said, I do hope that at some point in the future, our ideas of femininity and masculinity will stop dictating who we ought to be as people. No one is born either feminine or masculine. We are all different in our own unique ways, but that has little to do with our gender.

So let's stop trying to fit people into their assigned boxes. That's just some patriarchal crap we would all be better off without.

This story was originally published on Medium.