A lot of women are taught, both directly and invisibly, that success belongs to traits historically coded as ‘masculine.’ Competition. Emotional restraint. Dominance. Productivity without softness. Rationality without vulnerability. The modern workplace, politics, academia, even parts of creative culture, were largely built inside patriarchal systems that rewarded those behaviours long before women were allowed fully into those spaces.
So many women learn an unspoken survival equation:
To be taken seriously, become less readable as feminine.
Not necessarily less female, but less associated with qualities society has historically dismissed as weak. Nurturing. Intuition. Emotional depth. Sensuality. Collaboration. Receptivity. Softness. Cyclical energy. Care work. These traits are often romanticised in poetry and exploited in labour yet undervalued economically and politically. It creates a strange cultural paradox where femininity is desired, consumed, aestheticised... but not always respected as power.
For centuries, femininity was linked to dependence. Masculinity was linked to authority. Even now, women who embody strong feminine energy are often flattened into stereotypes:
· too emotional
· too sensitive
· too sexual
· too maternal
· too ‘difficult’
· too much
Meanwhile, women who adopt masculine-coded behaviours are often rewarded professionally, but then punished socially for being cold, intimidating, or unfeminine. It is a labyrinth with moving walls.
A lot of women are not denying femininity because they hate it. They are distancing themselves from what the world has historically penalised.
There is also another layer. Some women genuinely feel safer in masculine energy because it creates structure and protection. Especially after trauma, instability, or environments where softness was exploited. Masculine energy can feel like armour. Efficient. Controlled. Untouchable. The steel cathedral version of the self.
And modern capitalism intensifies this. Productivity culture rewards constant output:
· hustle
· grind
· optimisation
· emotional suppression
· linear achievement
But feminine energy tends to move cyclically rather than mechanically. It values intuition, reflection, embodiment, creativity, emotional connection, rest, and relational intelligence. Those things are harder to quantify on spreadsheets and quarterly reports.
The tragedy is that many people misunderstand femininity itself. They reduce it to aesthetics:
· makeup
· dresses
· passivity
· submissiveness
But femininity at its deepest is not weakness. It can be profoundly powerful. Creation itself is feminine coded in many spiritual and mythological traditions. The feminine births, transforms, seduces, destroys, nourishes, grieves, and resurrects. Think of figures like Lilith, Persephone, or Kali. The feminine is not merely soft light. It is also storm tide, oracle fire, and teeth in the dark forest.
What many women are searching for now is not a rejection of masculinity, but integration. The ability to succeed without amputating parts of themselves. To lead without becoming emotionally numb. To be ambitious without severing intuition. To be powerful without abandoning softness.
Healthy masculinity and healthy femininity are not enemies. They are complementary forces within human beings, regardless of gender. The problem begins when society only validates one mode of power.
And increasingly, women are beginning to ask:
What would success look like if it were built around wholeness instead of survival?
That question changes everything.