What I Have Taught My Feminism, Part III

(Go do your catch-up reading if you've missed Part II!)

The discomfort of my feminism as I write that who I am as a woman makes no sense except in relation to man (and again as I type it, and again as I post it) is palpable.  I have, for years, been on a quest to find the true meaning of femininity.  As a good feminist, I set out to find the definition of woman without reference to man.  I found two extremes: defining woman by a certain cultural/historical set of behaviors and values or collapsing gender differences to create a false equivalency.  I was unsatisfied wherever I turned.  If we can define man without reference to woman, shouldn’t we be able to do the opposite?

When I read the beginning of JPII’s Theology of the Body, it hit me.  I’d been getting it backwards.  Man was defined in isolation, woman with reference to man.  I knew woman was misdefined, so surely the approach to defining her was wrong; I needed to imitate the definition of man.

But what if the definition of man was wrong too?  What if man only makes sense in reference to woman?  This is the claim I make: masculinity and femininity are mutually referential and only make sense in relationship with each other.  Bodily, this makes sense.  Our physical bodies anticipate the opposite as complement.  I propose, once more following JPII, that our physical bodies give exterior shape to our interior selves.

In this case, it does woman no wrong to explain who she is with reference to (and in contrast to) man; it does man no wrong to explain who he is with reference to (and in contrast to) woman.  Indeed, any attempt at an isolated definition will do an injustice to femininity or masculinity,  It cannot but be a reductive view.

Does this mean that I have reached a perfect understanding of femininity, which I can now fully explicate for you?  Alas, no.  That is still a work in progress (though I hope to continue talking around the question here for a while yet).  A lot more work and research are necessary before I get there.  I am, however, making progress in developing the proper framework for asking the question, which is necessary for finding the answer.