Masculine and Feminine

You Are 62% Feminine, 38% Masculine

You are in touch with your feminine side. Sensitive, intuitive, and caring are all words that describe you. And you're just masculine enough to relate to both men and women.

Are You Masculine or Feminine?

This outcome doesn't surprise me. I think most reflective people have a pretty good idea where they fall on this spectrum. Girly girls know they have a higher feminine quotient. Macho women know they'd be near the middle or toward the masculine.

I'm reading Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent. In a social gender experiment, she dresses as a man to see what it's like to be a man.

I think many women wonder (but only in a fleeting way) what it's like to be a man. What I imagine is pretty superficial--talking in deeper voices, having stubble (and not on their legs), and walking and sitting with their legs far apart.

At the end of the experiment, the author says "I curtailed everything: my laugh, my word choice, my gestures, my expressions. Spontaneity went out the window, replaced by terseness, dissimulation and control."

She said that both men and women watch men for signs of weakness or inadequacy. They watch for any failure to observe the rules of manhood. And women, women want men to be in control, and also to be tender and vulnerable. (This could be quite a double bind!)

I'm sure there are rules for womenhood too. But what are they? Not to be loud? To be dependent? To be sweet and kind? To be supportive? To be sensitive? I'm not sure how they'd be characterized, but they must exist.