“Empowered femininity”: characteristics, trends, symbols
There are hardly any examples of the “feminine woman” promoted by media in an empowering and liberating manner, transcending the fears and limitations imposed upon by the feminist discourse. Repeated waves of feminism have fundamentally corrupted its initial significance, constructed by such intellectuals as Simone de Beauvoir or Julia Kristeva, who were focused on solutions and visions for the future, not on endlessly rehashing the past. The reasons are manifold: a faulty definition of “femininity”; the lack of courage to address “femininity” as a daily, processual practice, not a stable, fixed entity; the absence of emotional flexibility to allow for multiple “femininities” to co-exist on the biological foundation of motherhood; the rejection of spiritual maturity to acknowledge and celebrate differences instead of denying and effacing them; the inexistence of mental strength to acknowledge “femininity” and “masculinity” as complementary structures within the greater whole of humankind, interdependently connected to each other on the basis of mutual respect, acceptance and cooperation. This is what I see as “empowered femininity” carried out by the “feminine woman” of late modernity.
Accordingly, “empowered femininity” is defined by a sense of calm happiness and unconditional self-love, flowing like liquid sunlight from within herself towards the outer world. It transcends the limitations of gender and sexuality, and encourages a warm interaction with oneself and the others. The “empowered femininity” of late modernity resides in the biological ability of women as potential mothers and primary educators to see themselves in the proactive role of messengers of love, faith and compassion.
The “feminine woman” of late modernity does not reject her gender and her sexuality, but regards them as assets in her perception and processing of reality, of the life and of the world. She is nurturing, but not conformist, and the freedom of choice does not include promiscuity and dishonesty. Living with integrity and facing challenges with courage, she lives in harmony with herself and with other humans, with the nature and with the universe at large. A soft sense of calm enthusiasm brings her to ever deeper levels of peace within herself, and she glows that peace towards those around her, in the eternal flow of coherent human interactions and exchanges.
The “feminine woman” of late modernity is far more than a plain alternative to shôjo and her fluid juxtapositions of power, sexuality, aggressiveness and nonchalance. Like Princess Leia Organa from the Star Wars franchise or Princess Kaguya (from the animation movie The Tale of Princess Kaguya, 2013, based on the 10th-century Japanese folk-tale), the late-modern “feminine woman” is a metaphor for transcendental “empowered femininity” across times and spaces, while having definitely extracted crucial elements from a child’s imaginary conglomerate: she keeps a child-like joy of experiencing life in its everyday transience while maturing under the sign of healthily incorporating new experiences and challenges. Mainstream media and public opinions may still objectify and sexualize her presence, but the “feminine woman” knows that anger and aggressive display of disdain or contempt is far below her dignity, so that she gracefully distances herself from mass-mediated images and stereotypes of “what a woman should be like” and instead focuses on creating a life of her own with people around her with whom she shares common values and ideals.
Rising above impossible standards of success and likeability, the late-modern “feminine woman” decides that her destiny lies in the very choices she is making. Neither Princess Leia Organa nor Princess Kaguya find their fulfillment in direct connection with a man – but rather in their decision to pursue their own paths in life, and in their individual determination and commitment to stay true to themselves. At times, it implies sacrifice and pain, and the lesson that love is something to give, not to take: it is something to give, to oneself and to the others, a mindful choice made every day – like happiness and the warm, soft sense of belonging. Beyond the momentary solitude which might arise from such an attitude towards life, there is the ineffable promise of a better world to emerge from the chaos and confusion of this one, suffocated in sex, consumerism and hatred: a promise of acceptance and solace, of quiet celebration of the human being and of humanity in its astonishing diversity and unleashed potential.
It is on the background of this “empowered femininity” and its fundamental function in the survival of humankind as a biological species that the toxicity of online dating practices appears in its full Voldemort-like ugliness and evil. The lack of trust which eats at the very fabric of human society is the first level of destruction incurred by virtual behaviors to the real world. The gradual loss of authentic, inspiring femininity results from it, as without trust there is no human bond and no unconditional commitment, which, for better or for worse, have constituted the foundation of the family at the very core of any sort of social construct.
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I remember holding a talk on online dating and the resurgence of toxic humanity during a workshop on digital media at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, at the beginning of December 2017. I knew it was a sensitive topic, for several reasons. The most important two reasons were
- my rather critical attitude towards digital media and my concern related to the way they impact our lives in the real world;
- the fact that most of the workshop participants were avid consumers of digital products while actively using digital platforms to express themselves at large.
On this background, I had structured my presentation in a humorous way, so that I do not scare away possible comments and feedback. What struck me, though, was the weak reaction of the audience to my talk, reduced to methodological questions and theoretical inquiries, and complete silence over the contents itself, as if I had been talking about frozen dinosaurs. To relax the atmosphere, I had even showed a short video titled “The History of the Dick Pic” featuring the popular dating coach Matthew Hussey, a biting parody of this infamous trend. Still, the awkward silence continued, not reinvigorated by my questions to the audiences as to what their experiences in the online dating world might be. After the workshop, during the coffee breaks, I was accosted by several female participants, who told me about their experiences or those of persons they knew: their stories were hauntingly similar to the ones I had talked about previously. But none of the male participants would even try to talk to me anymore: bemused and somehow confused, I thought of the whole situation as ridiculous, my only explication for my sudden isolation being the openly critical attitude towards the alienating effect of digital media and the urge, very visible both in my talk and in my images, to do something about it, in our function as responsible educators and intellectual citizens.
It took me several weeks to realize that the uncomfortable silence after my presentation was the result of the brutal awakening in the male members of the audience that what I had labeled “toxic humanity” – that is, the unforgivable behavior of male netizens and online daters towards their female counterparts – is actually them. Aware or not of their own contribution to the negativity of virtual interactions, the male participants in that workshop were suddenly and immediately confronted with the other side of the coin: a female researcher who had experienced first-hand online dating and had been horrified by its reality. Maybe it was embarrassment, maybe it was some sense of guilt, or maybe it was simply the feeling of “I do not care”; I know for sure, though, that it was a negative emotional reaction, a deeply seated anger for having been caught, for not being allowed to do whatever they thought it was right in that very moment – which brings us back to Michael Kimmel’s “aggrieved entitlement” of late-modern masculinity (Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era, 2015), in which patterns of patriarchal behavior are questioned and challenged, and forcibly undermined, in an unprecedented move against oppression and violence.
As it turns obvious from various posts on Vitixa, the refusal to acknowledge the changing historicities we are currently crossing can only result in an alienation and further isolation of the subjects choosing to do so. But there are alternative role-models – which are, in fact, not so alternative, as they have been promoted by mainstream media and have turned, instantly or over time, into popular artefacts of human creativity.
