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What makes a woman womanly?

Or rather, which of the following makes a female person less womanly?

a) wearing pants
b) having a "strong" personality (not to be confused with rudeness)
c) having athletic ability, or being physically strong, or built like a Mack truck (take your pick)
d) wearing her hair short
e) working outside the home
f) being good at carpentry
g) preferring crafts, nature study, mechanical things or other such things to dolls (in childhood)
h) not wearing makeup
i) being homely
j) having small breasts
k) not caring for lace
l) not caring to cook or bake (though obviously doing it anyway, so as not to starve)
m) being infertile
n) being amenorrheic
o) being homosexual
p) being a liar
q) cheating
r) stealing
s) gossiping
t) being purposely seductive of someone other than a marriage partner or serious prospect
u) being envious
v) backbiting
w) murdering
x) neglecting spouse or children
y) being slothful
z) abusing drugs or alcohol

Darn, I'm out of letters.

My short answer to the question: none of the above make a woman any less a woman, or less womanly. Some of the above make a woman not a very good person. Some of them are indicative of a woman being less than she can be, or less than one might say she was purposed to be...the question is, which ones? Some of them are part of what being a woman may be, legitimately, regardless of what kind of a person she is. Again, which ones, is the question.

Comments

What makes a woman "less womanly"? Depends on what you mean by "womanly" and "less" (as opposed to "more"?).

Posted by: Kristine at January 21, 2008 10:53 PM

We lack the definition of womanly, feminine, female, etc. How does Scripture define it? I believe, very simply, having been created in the image of God. How does that look? We reflect God's character. How does that distinguish us from the manly, the masculine, the male of our species? It doesn't. I'm not sure if there is more outside of our procreative capicity and associated capacities for nurturing that differentiates us from our male counterparts.

Posted by: Sarah Flashing at January 21, 2008 11:23 PM

I understand which of the list makes a woman less godly, but womanly? Most of the womanish characteristics I can think of may be culturally based, not Biblical nor inherent. Or qualities we usually think of as primarily feminine, may not be absolutely feminine. (I'm not one of those people who believe everyone has a feminine and masculine side. Labels on qualities within a person's character seem unhelpful to me.) For instance, women are supposed be be warmer, more affectionate, yet I think my husband beats me on this one. He grew up in an affectionate family and my family was German-mennonite--enough said.

Posted by: Ruthie at January 22, 2008 6:36 PM

Exactly, you guys.

I do think that there are characteristics that many more men than women share, and vice-versa, but the only absolute differences (except for very rare anomalies) are the sexual /procreative ones. (addendum: which include physical characterics. There are probably more subtle gender differences as well but I don't think they are worth trying to categorize.)

I think it is a great mistake to categorize otherwise, and that what both men and women ought concern themselves with first and foremost is godly character, which arises from an ongoing acquiescence to the gospel. We are created as men and women -- a woman is a woman and there's nothing she can do about it (outside of surgery and hormonal manipulation...which I'm not sure completely determines gender either). In living in accordance with the gospel, she will be who she is created and purposed to be. Intrinsic womanhood, as opposed to that which might be "put on" extrinsically.

Ruthie, I chuckled at your last statement -- I'm of mostly German extraction myself and grew up in rural SE Pennsylvania...I know what you're talking about :-)

Posted by: Bonnie at January 23, 2008 11:54 AM

Murder. Definitely murder.

Posted by: Letitia at January 25, 2008 11:48 AM

Exactly. I get so tired of pressure to conform to a list of stereotypes about what men and women are supposed to be as proxy for being a godly man or woman. Being close to someone's stereotype doesn't make me godly. I fit some stereotypes about women (I'm bad with directions and mathematics and I don't much care for spectator sports nor am I athletic but I love kids and cook well and am comfortable following a good leader) and not others (I'm logical, decisive, prefer action/suspense movies to chic flicks, enjoy participating in a good debate, am comfortable as a leader and serve in that role regularly including in elected positions, love truth, tend to be more goal-oriented / ideas focused than relational, was something of a tomboy in childhood, rarely wear makeup and have little interest in fashion, scrap-booking, elaborate decorating, flirtation or gossip). Stereotypes are about degree of confirmation to the norm and are used to ostracize or condemn persons considered by the majority to deviate to an unacceptable degree from that norm. The bible doesn't define masculinity or femininity based on stereotypes, and the focus for the biblical Christian should be far more on conformation to the image of Christ than to a culturally (or sub-culturally) acceptable definition of what it means to be a socially acceptable member of ones gender.

Posted by: EM at February 24, 2008 10:51 PM
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