Even Billie Eilish has Unyielding Pressure to Conform: The Ongoing Struggle with Identity and Authenticity
What are “feminine traits” and how do they present in your life? Why do they seem to have a negative implication? This reporter’s research on the topic finds femininity (also called womanliness) has been defined as a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with women and girls. Pop stars, even Billie Eilish, are not exempt from outside pressure. Billie Eilish recently has mostly quit the odd and tomboy style with which she presented as she became famous, and is dressing more like a grown, sexy woman, something her haters can’t deal with. In recent Instagram posts she wrote, ” spent the first 5 years of my career getting absolutely obliterated by you fools for being boyish and dressing how I did; constantly being told be hotter if I acted like a woman and now when I feel comfortable enough to wear anything remotely feminine or fitting, i CHANGED and am a sellout” “You guys are true idiots LOL…. i can be BOTH you f***ing bozos. LET WOMEN EXIST.” Billie also noted femininity in and of itself doesn’t equal weakness … and that women just *might* want to express themselves differently at different times for a variety of reasons.
In general, femininity is currently understood as a social construct, with some evidence that these behaviors are influenced by cultural and biological factors. I found this general description in a wide variety of publications including the Gale Researcher Guide for the Continuing Significance of Gender, a sociology text by Joan Ferrante, a review of the MMPI by Martin and Finn1, and a multitude of other resources regarding the relationships among gender, nature and nurture.2 How feminine are you and what does that mean?
Billie Eilish at the Metropolitan!
I am a woman who was born in the middle of the last century and was raised as a girl. In the past I generally complied with cultural expectations. My idea of feminine was the different roles I had been assigned or chose, i.e., sister, daughter, pretty, sweet etc., and when I was very young, I realized that I was at a disadvantage. My brothers had more freedom and prestige even at that age. So, what was it that caused me to be less valued? I have always been rather theatrical and got teased because of that. Was this femininity? What could I do about that? This elusive concept appears to be distinct from both biological sex and from womanhood, as what femininity and masculinity are.
So, I recently asked a friend of mine about how he identifies his feminine. I was especially curious as he had been a woman before transition. Ryan said that he is aware of the feminine when he is “having fun and being silly”. Also when experiencing feelings other than anger he feels his feminine is coming out and wondered if it was family or cultural pressure. Among women intellectuals, Simone de Beauvoir wrote that “biological, psychological or economic fate determines” how the human female is perceived. Well then, how is it that we seem to be in a disadvantaged position? Is it the femininity? Is it the sexual identity we identify with? How is femininity determined?
There have been a number of efforts to measure femininity (and masculinity). One model pioneered by psychologists Lewis Terman and Catherine Cox Miles proposed that femininity and masculinity were innate and enduring qualities, not easily measured, opposite to one another, and that imbalances between them led to mental disorders. During the 1970s’ interest in androgyny, researchers found that masculinity and femininity varied independently of each other. De Beauvoir believed that while there are biological differences between females and males, the concepts of femininity and masculinity were cultural and girls were socialized into conforming to feminine values and behaviors. Why do others think they have the right to tell me who I am?
De Beauvoir believed girls were socialized into conforming to feminine values and behaviors.
Another of those early feminists, Betty Friedan wrote in The Feminine Mystique, that “the key to women’s subjugation lay in the social construction of femininity as childlike, passive, and dependent”, and she called for “reshaping of the cultural image of femininity.”
Another point of view by Shulamith Firestone, the “hair on fire” feminist contemporary with other first wave feminists but far more extreme was brought to my attention from a discussion with Professor Rinita Mazumdar at CNM who spoke about her radical proposals including that the traditional family structure was the core of women’s oppression and she proposed in her life and writings a futuristic world where women were liberated by artificial reproduction outside the womb, and not only “the elimination of male privilege but of the sex distinction itself: genital difference between human beings would no longer matter culturally.”
Simone de Beauvoir and Shulamith Firestone, the “hair on fire” feminist.
I am sure you have noticed that Lesbians are being pressured and harassed in a number of other ways that are awkward and downright incongruent. This is not a new phenomenon. Women especially Lesbians, have faced personal and professional attacking and criticism. In 1976 A feminist journalist, Jo Feeman wrote in about it in an article for Ms magazine as multiple women were harassed, belittled personally and felt they were forced into leaving the movement.
“…I have been watching for years with increasing dismay as the Movement consciously destroys anyone within it who stands out in any way…the many women whose talents have been lost to the Movement because their attempts to use them had been met with hostility. …[But] the Movement has not learned from its unexamined experience. Instead, trashing has reached epidemic proportions.” (Freeman 1976)
"I will not agree to the identified feminine traits of 'childlike, passive, sexy' nor the pressure NOT to identify as Lesbian. "
Case in point was actually Shula, who was so wounded by the personal vicious cruelty she endured that she resorted to isolation. She was found after many days, dead in her apartment and in 2012. At Shulamith’s funeral Kate Millet (another one who had been forced out of the mainstream as well as left the movement after personal “trashing” came forward and read from one of Shula’s last publications and that indicated the depth of this formative feminist’s despair. It was clear something terrible had happened to Firestone, besides rejection, starvation, despair and isolation. When she finished reading, Kate said, “I think we should remember Shulie, because we (the feminist movement?) are in the same place now.”
Wow! So nothing has changed but the tools to trash each other when someone is “offended.” So, how do we communicate? There are so many more identities available these days and each of us has a right to determine what, when and how much, or if any, of these so-called feminine or masculine traits we want to express, or not. In studies, all heterosexual, of course, the issue of the degrees of femininity to women and girls is directly related to their sexual appeal to men. This pressure is strongly related to maintaining the current patriarchal system. Think of movie and pop stars.
Billie Eilish and Betty Friedan: Who know they had anything in common?
Roughly seven-in-ten lesbians have encountered harassment online and fully 51% have been targeted for more severe forms of online abuse, much from the LGBT community itself.
Well now, if All Women are subject to the pressure to conform to the patriarchy how much more so are Lesbians? Our very existence is a threat to the established order. In a PEW research center report (January 13, 2021) it was reported that Lesbians are more likely to face online harassment than other groups. Talk about pressure… Roughly seven-in-ten lesbians have encountered harassment online and fully 51% have been targeted for more severe forms of online abuse, much from the LGBT community itself. How do we resist the external pressures this environment wants us to conform to? Ti-Grace Atkinson in the late 1970’s declared, “Sisterhood is powerful. It kills, mostly sisters.” this famous line is one of the most frequently misquoted lines in the feminist movement, where “mostly” is usually dropped. Have you experienced pressure/harassment/bullying to conform to identities that you do not accept? I have and it sucks. That makes me be considered as difficult and controversial. I will not agree to the identified feminine traits of “childlike, passive, sexy” nor the pressure NOT to identify as Lesbian. I love Billie’s modeling of refusing to submit to bullying and her defying the anonymous creeps on line.
As well as making an effort to discriminate how much is being determined by outside pressures, Billie said, we can change and present in many ways at different times. Not only that we can choose whether or not to be “offended” by these outside critiques. What and how can we communicate more constructively? One way would be to listen without commenting. Another is the so-called golden rule of treating others the way we would like to be treated ourselves. A third I suggest is that in our lives we consider adapting the 12-step program tools that were developed to help people with issues we have in common and radically divergent beliefs and lifestyles, some of which include “Live and let live,” and “no criticism or abusive personal attacks”. Could this kindness in action be adopted? I hope we can learn to focus on the one (or few) issues we have in common. The world and our community would be in a better place.
1 Ferrante, Joan (January 2010). Sociology: A Global Perspective (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. pp. 269–272. ISBN 978-
0-8400-3204-1.
2 Martin, Hale; Finn, Stephen E. (2010). Masculinity and Femininity in the MMPI-2 and MMPI-A. University of Minnesota Press.
pp. 5–13. ISBN 978-0-8166-2444-7.
3 International Journal of Psycho-Analysis; London Vol. 18, (Jan 1, 1937):331 TERMAN,LEWISM.,and MILES,
CATHERINE COX: (assisted by nine others):Studies in Masculinity and Femininty.
4 de Beauvoir, Simone (2010). The Second Sex. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-0307265562.
