In 2012 I wrote an article about what has happened to the relationship between women and men that ended with this sentence: “Women have the power to turn everything around. All they have to do is surrender to their nature — their femininity — and let men surrender to theirs.”
That article went viral, and my naysayers’ refrain went something like this: What does that even mean — for a woman to “surrender to her femininity?”
I answered that question in a follow-up book, The Alpha Female’s Guide to Men & Marriage, which has been described as “a practical secular guide to a satisfying marriage in a world where women are trained to behave like men.”
Here’s what being feminine does not mean: being docile or weak. It does not mean batting one’s eyelashes and pretending you have no thoughts or opinions of your own. That is the narrative our gender-obsessed culture sells, but it’s wrong.
I thought of all this when I heard that a woman named Kaya Day is challenging Thesaurus.com’s definition of the word “feminine.” There are 27 more synonyms for the word masculine than there are for the word feminine at Thesaurus.com, which I suspect is because there happen to be more words to define masculinity than there are words to define femininity. Although some of the synonyms listed for masculine — such as ape, beefcake, and hairy — are hardly sound. They’re also negative in nature.
But the number of synonyms for the word feminine isn’t what Day is upset about. She’s upset that the synonyms for this word — words such as ladylike, soft, and tender — are insulting. After all, she says, today’s women are strong, brave and powerful, and the dictionary definition should reflect that. Apparently, the lexicographer for Thesaurus.com, agrees. “I agree that these entries are imbalanced, and the definition for the word ‘feminine’ is high on our list to review.”
It is so comical to watch millennials struggle with words the way they do. This generation honestly believes they can alter the meanings of words to fit what they want the words to mean, rather than accept what they do mean.
I couldn’t agree more that women are strong, brave and powerful; but that doesn’t mean the word feminine can transform itself to mean those things. Feminine means what it means, just as masculine means what it means. That women today have more masculine qualities doesn’t (indeed, cannot) change the word feminine itself.
More importantly — and hold on because this will come as a shock to many — a woman can be both strong, brave, and powerful, and feminine. The gender war being waged today is missing this critical fact. A woman who retains her femininity while also being a force with which to be reckoned in the world outside her doorstep truly has it all. This woman understands that there are a time and a place to be masculine and a time and a place to be feminine. The trick is being able to switch gears.
Women who want to turn the world upside down to accommodate their grievances (namely, millennials) are fighting a losing battle. There’s a much easier way to move through the world as a woman, and it doesn’t require altering the dictionary. It requires having the strength and confidence millennials claim women have in spades today.
But I don’t see any evidence that they do.
Suzanne Venker (@SuzanneVenker) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is an author, Fox News contributor, and trustee of Leading Women for Shared Parenting. Her fifth book, “The Alpha Female’s Guide to Men & Marriage: HOW LOVE WORKS,” was published in February.
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