Danielle🌻

@instantly-panicked nailed it

I believe marriage is somewhere in the middle of both of these statements. It should be joyful, but it won't be joyful/ perfect every day. But that doesn't mean that it isn't worth it. And that the joy will never return. Life is hard and so is marriage. 🤷🏿‍♀️

bell hooks, communion: the female search for love

I'd love to hear Black women's (inclusive of trans, nonbinary, and cis) thoughts on these questions.

1. Is femininity an important part of your identity? Do you want people to see you as feminine?

2. Do you think Black women have a harder time being seen as feminine? If so, how does that impact your life?

3. Are you into any Black femininity content? This would include stuff like hypergamy, soft life, luxury, divine femininity, etc?

4. If so, how does this content help you? If not, why aren't you interested?

5. Do you consider yourself to be a Black feminist and/or womanist?

6. If so, why? If not, why not?

1.

I genuinely enjoy wearing dresses and pink and other stereotypical girly girl things. But it feels like something shifted and being feminine went from aesthetic choices to being synonymous with anti feminism so I'm now fearful people loom at me in a petticoat and lipstick and think I'm complicated in my own gender oppression.

2.

We definitely. Especially the more "ethnic" you are (darker skin, kinker hair, fuller face features, etc.) Femininity in it's current bullshit definition describes how close you are to that ideal cishet white upper class womanhood. Society's idea of a feminine woman is young, conventionally attractive, a mother, has a husband rich enough that she doesn't have to work, thin, conservative but not political, and has that j. crew look. The further you away from that ideal womanhood the less feminine you are. It's a blessing and a curse depending on the situation. Not meeting this ideal keeps backwards thinking men away from me but also keeps me away from things I might enjoy (I like the preppy look but I don't want people to think I'm a republican etc). I notice when I'm out in sweatpants vs a nice dress people are meaner to me (won't smile back, don't offer their seat on bus, less likely to strike up conversation)

3.

I call it tradwife content for negroes and block anyone that starts to go down that path. I don't have the time.

4. The tradwife to magahat pipeline is real. I'm a girly so I follow a lot of cutesy IG influencers to get ideas on what to wear, new places to shop, see cute pictures, etc. I've had to unfollow a lot of Black women influencers because their content went from cute and fun to fox news. I feel like the pin up community is the last hold out of feminine girls that are feminists.

5.

Yes but I need to read more theory and take a few classes somewhere down the line.

6.

Being a Black woman, especially one that's dark skinned/has no white features, is a lot like being between a rock and a hard place. Black women have contributed so much to civil rights and feminism often leading these movements over the last 200 years (in America at least) but we still get racism from mainstream feminism and sexism from antiracism. I think for a lot of these tradwife for negro girlies they correctly saw that they're running a race they can't win. This "femininity" movement offered them a way out of running. You follow the script as closely as you can and things will be good enough. Femininity says to rhem you'll always be inferior as a woman and as a Black person but you'll always be better than a poor woman that works (or even the middle class/rich woman that works to maintain that class). It says to them you may be Black but at least you're not masculine. At least you're straight and cisgender. At least you're not "ghetto". At least thin. At least you're soft. At least you're married. That man walks all over you and treats you like a second class citizen in your own home but thank god you're not lonely, childless or employed. We need feminism to be intersection to teach women that it's okay to be masculine, fat, single, childless, have a job and yes even ghetto. You can be a wife, mother, and an equal partner in your relationship. You can wear pretty pink suits to your law office. Or that you can be a hairy fat welder with a wife you respect at home. That the ideal 50s housewife is dead and 2nd wave feminism killed her for a reason.

I'm cis and Black

Thanks so much!!! I think it's interesting that you mentioned that feminine aesthetics are linked to anti-feminism/ tradwife stuff.

Audre Lorde warned of mistaking “the trappings of success in a sick society for the signs of a meaningful life.”

As Toni Morrison said, success “will never substitute for comfort, friends and love.” And it’s really “a private thing. It’s when you have fewer and fewer regrets.”

Animal Crossing: New Leaf (2012)

I partially don't agree with this. The poster's argument is essentially that white women are becoming galvanized to join far-right movements because they're using rhetoric about protecting women and children.

I think this framing ironically uses sexist logic to explain why white women are active in the far-right (they care about the children!). In reality, white women have always actively colluded with white men in support of white supremacy. 2024 is no different. Britt is just following her history. White women have always had a place in white supremacist movements. Even if it's subordinate.

totality, april 2024

I’m tired, tired of being enclosed here. I'm wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there; not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart; but really with it, and in it.

Aida_diop_1 [ A i d a D i o p ]

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Giambattista Valli Spring 2024

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