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As I mentioned in my post on shame saving the world, it was Dostoevsky who famously claimed that beauty would perform the miracle – with a Greek blogger offering a much needed correction: Beauty will save those who can see it. But let’s see another candidate: Can femininity save the world?

In fact, fuck it; I better stand behind my words, otherwise what’s the point of uttering them: Only femininity can save the world.

Before I explain myself – I’d say the inspiration behind this idea is at least as important as the idea itself – it’s important to lay down some theoretical and conceptual foundations. “Femininity”, like “love” or “success” is a very tricky word, particularly perhaps in today’s world.

So for my purposes and the purposes of this post, I define femininity as a body of cultural knowledge. It’s the collective human history of what being a woman is (better: can be) without – and this is crucial – being limiting or exclusive to women. Any culture or body of cultural knowledge that is prescriptive rather than descriptive is disgusting.

A Shit-show Run by Man-Babies

Let’s remember my in-your-face-titled post on warmongering and masculinity. In particular, let’s revisit this excerpt I found in the excellent book The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, by Christopher Clark:

Historians of gender have suggested that around the last decades of the nineteenth and the first of the twentieth century, a relatively expansive form of patriarchal identity centred on the satisfaction of appetites (food, sex, commodities) made way for something slimmer, harder and more abstinent. At the same time, competition from subordinate and marginalized masculinities – proletarian and non-white, for example – accentuated the expression of ‘true masculinity’ within the elites. Among specifically military leadership groups, stamina, toughness, duty and unstinting service gradually displaced an older emphasis on elevated social origin, now perceived as effeminate.

In plain terms: At around the turn of the century, to be a man meant to be tough and unyielding. Of course, throughout history (and certainly in the Victorian era), women were supposed to be meek, calm, submissive, caring, etc., so it’s not a great leap to construct male identities that are opposite.

Of course, there is a problem in this line of thought. Is a woman “supposed” to be meek and calm, or is she truly so?

What Is True Femininity?

In other words, is a random woman – and perhaps we can imagine a Victorian woman here – really meek, calm and submissive by nature, or is she a product of her sociocultural context?

The concept is far more complex than it might initially appear.

First of all, we can never reach any conclusions about any random individual person. Such examinations can only make sense on the societal level. The most intriguing aspect, however, lies in the fact that femininity both is and isn’t a product of sociocultural forces.

Although any random woman might or might not be similar to the majority of other women in the same context – say, a middle-class woman in 1870s London, or a Saudi woman in present-day Jeddah – women in general do exhibit behavioral characteristics that for reasons historical, cultural, societal, and also biological – hormones are real, for men and women alike – follow certain patterns.

Generally (I really must stress this), women indeed are calmer, friendlier, and more caring, emotional, interactive, supportive, cerebral, indirect. Generally (ditto), men indeed are louder and more direct, aggressive, selfish. I mean, according to some recent statistics, over 80% of murders globally have been committed by men.

Still, there is no direct concept of “inherent femininity” we can zero in on. Perhaps we could include other species in the discussion, like the matriarchal bonobos that feature far less aggression than chimpanzees, but even there, where do we separate biology from society?

Ultimately, the subheading is a dead-end. There is no true femininity; it’s always a construct (turtles all the way down and all that). However, that doesn’t make it any less real.

“Longing to See a Woman’s Face”

So, where does that leave us in terms of why femininity can save the world?

I talked earlier about inspiration behind writing this post, and as with a lot of things worth a damn, this inspiration came from art. In particular, from two songs. The first song was “The Words that Maketh Murder”, by PJ Harvey:

Click to display the embedded YouTube video

This song comes from the superlative album Let England Shake, a masterpiece of political commentary. Take a look at the lyrics and notice the powerful contrast:

I have seen and done things I want to forget –
soldiers fell like lumps of meat,
blown and shot out beyond belief.
arms and legs were in the trees.

I have seen and done things I want to forget –
coming from an unearthly place,
longing to see a woman’s face
or hear a piano’s grace,
instead of the words that gather pace,
the words that maketh murder.

Hearing the line “longing to see a woman’s face” (quickly followed by the reference to art and “a piano’s grace”) created a powerful feeling of realization in me – it made me “get” it. It also inspired intense empathy for people who lived (and died) well over a century ago, in trenches away from home, for a war they didn’t choose and had no stake in.

More importantly in the context of how femininity can save the world, it made me realize the utter madness of giving away goodness, empathy, solidarity, caring, respect, to go and take lives losing yours in the process.

It’s not only women who can show and feel empathy (neither do all women nurture such positive feelings). Similarly, not all (perhaps, I’d like to think, not even the majority) of men are evil brutes.

But the cultural categories of masculinity and femininity – what I referred to in the introduction as a body of cultural knowledge – are clear, opposing, and inescapable.

As defined in this post, femininity can save the world; women and men alike.

When Femininity Comes to Save the World, You Barely Notice

Besides PJ Harvey, I was also inspired from another song. Strictly speaking, from the movie behind the song, though it’s important to note that the crucial scene in the film does feature the song. They’re interconnected.

The song is Faye Wong’s cover of “Dreams”, by The Cranberries, and the film is Chungking Express, by Wong Kar-wai:

Click to display the embedded YouTube video

In the film, Faye Wong’s character is in love with a police officer (played by Tony Leung). At some point she secretly breaks into his apartment (pictured in the music video) and cleans up, bringing some much needed freshness – also emotionally and abstractly – into the stale space.

And what happens next? He doesn’t even notice.

Listening to this song (and having seen the film, knowing about the details above) triggered this sense of frustration in me; this sort of anger, because it reflects a very common expression of our global experience: Much more often than not, there is no reward for goodness in this fucked-up world.

People – perhaps especially simple-minded, linear-thinking, masculinity-oriented men and women alike – sort of expect everything to just work, in a Disney-magic manner, and barely even notice the empathic, caring, creative, femininity-oriented men and women alike who keep the whole thing from imploding.

How Femininity Can Save the World

Perhaps it has not been immediately evident, but there’s a strong meta- quality in this post, which I will reveal immediately: I managed to nurture these thoughts for long enough and write it inspired by art; creativity; seeing connections; empathy.

Similarly, femininity can save the world if we manage to allow these positive values to overcome the negative values of masculinity: competition, mindless growth, materialism, drive for absolute values.

The usual identity construction determinants – related to gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or whatever else – don’t matter. You can be a masculinity-oriented woman or a femininity-oriented man. Indeed, the first step would be in understanding that, in a cultural context like that of this post, to be called someone with feminine sensitivities is a compliment.

What does matter is to realize that this world has had enough of dick-waving man-babies that are so insecure they need to project their own hypermasculinity on other people.