having qualities and attributes traditionally associated with being a woman; possessing traits, behaviours and/or behaviours that are typically associated with the feminine side of the gender spectrum.

Men that possess feminine attributes are known to be effeminate or ‘femme‘; in Queer slang, lesbian and bisexual women that are feminine are known as lipstick lesbians. Women who are more masculine than feminine are known as butch or tomboys.

Femininity and masculinity are social constructs; however, that is not to say that gender is completely constructed or that there are no environmental or biological factors in play, and even as a social construct, concepts of femininity and masculinity aren’t inherently wrong – traditionally, the problem has been that women have been expected to be feminine; femininity was seen as ‘weaker’ than masculinity; people have ascribed false or self-fulfilling traits on femininity (e.g. ascribing rationality and strength as masculine traits, in order to paint femininity as irrational and weak); that femininity was seen as submissive, and masculinity as dominant; and that women who weren’t feminine were portrayed in a negative light and faced prejudice.

Such concepts were used to oppress women into subordinate positions below men, and to paint women as being intellectually incapable: this misogynistic, sexist thinking has traditionally resulted in women being stripped of the right to vote, being relegated to work only as a homemaker or in servitude, and the gender pay gap. Such beliefs still persist in my areas of the world and Western society, traditionally those that are more conservative and/or traditional.