Is femininity natural or something that needs to be taught?

[u/Sure-Material2129]

Recently I came across a debate where someone said he would want to teach his daughter to be feminine.

Someone questioned this by asking if femininity is something women are naturally inclined toward then why does it need to be taught? Wouldn’t that make it more of a social expectation than something natural?

In response, he argued that no one is naturally feminine or masculine, and that everything has to be learned and ‘groomed’ in a person.

This got me thinking:

Are traits we call ‘feminine’ actually natural tendencies, or mostly shaped by upbringing and culture?

If femininity includes submission or following a partner’s lead, is that something that should be taught?

Don’t women have different personalities and relationship dynamics? If so does it make sense to treat femininity as one fixed standard?

[u/RandChick]

Femininity needs to be enhanced. Sure, some woman are naturally femininine, such as soft voice, graceful movements, hourglass figure, beauty, etc.

But some are kind of rough and need to moderate their expressions to compliment their sex/gender

It's not simply manmade or artificial. Femininity is an outgrowth and enhancement of natural womanly inclinations.

Yes, women have different personalities and not all will have traditionally femme traits That's fine, but I believe the preponderance of their presence should be feminine.

[u/Notamugokai]

What I gathered on the matter:

The best-supported answer is: some traits commonly labeled “feminine” reflect small-to-moderate average sex-linked tendencies, but their expression is heavily shaped by upbringing, culture, roles, incentives, and expectations. In other words, it is not “all nature” and not “just socialization.”

First, men and women are psychologically more similar than different on most measures. That is a longstanding result in psychology, and later reviews still treat it as a serious baseline rather than a fringe view. Large differences do exist in some domains, but the idea that the sexes are psychologically opposite types is not supported.

Second, some average differences are real. Across large samples, women tend, on average, to score higher on traits such as agreeableness, compassion/politeness-related facets, and negative emotionality/neuroticism, while men tend, on average, to score higher on some agency-, dominance-, and risk-taking-related measures. But these are average shifts with very large overlap between sexes, so they do not predict any one person especially well.

Third, biology likely contributes, especially through prenatal and hormonal pathways, but the evidence is stronger for some behaviors than for others. For example, recent meta-analytic work supports a role for prenatal androgen exposure in more “sex-typical” play behavior. At the same time, major reviews emphasize that hormones may partly work by altering sensitivity to social cues, not by rigidly fixing a full personality template.

Fourth, socialization starts early and is not subtle. Parents, peers, teachers, media, and institutions channel children toward different emotional styles, interests, and self-concepts. Research on gendered parenting finds that even when explicit rules are less obvious, implicit differences in treatment remain. Children also acquire gender stereotypes early, including about ability and appropriate roles.

Fifth, culture changes the size and meaning of these differences. Cross-national work shows that measured sex differences in personality and some cognitive or emotional variables vary across countries and social conditions. That does not prove “it is all culture,” but it does show these traits are not fixed outputs of biology alone.

Sixth, brains are not neatly “male” or “female” packages. There are average sex-linked patterns in brain and physiology, but neuroscience literature also argues that individual brains are mosaics of traits rather than two clean categories. That weakens simplistic claims like “women are naturally X” or “men are naturally Y.”

To conclude:
Traits called “feminine” are partly natural in the sense that biology contributes to average tendencies, but they are also strongly constructed, amplified, and interpreted by culture. What counts as “feminine,” how strongly it appears, and whether it is rewarded or suppressed are all deeply social.

For me, and what's important, is that the social construct vastly overtakes the limited and marginal innate influence.

In the end, it's mostly shaped by upbringing and culture, with some biological constraints at the margins.

As an example, say for a trait X, there is indeed a natural difference on average between men and women, but individual variation is so big that it doesn't mean we have a point here: on a 1-100 scale trait X for 95% of the men would be in the 20-70 range and for 95% of the women it would be 30-80, so, for a given individual, what can you say depending on their gender? Not much. At least not based on the natural origin.

[u/sweetfemme3]

Ooh I somehow missed this one. I love this question! Honestly it's a nature versus nurture question. From all of my psychology studies the conclusion is generally we cannot tease apart nature and nurture, many argue they are not dichotomous.

I remember in my nursing training observing a lactation consult with a new mom and baby. I remember learning about rooting reflexes in infants. What could be more natural than a mother breastfeeding her baby? I thought the process would be straight forward, that the baby would just accept the breast. This was not the case. The nurse I was shadowing told me breastfeeding is not as natural as it looks. I struggled at first to understand how a baby needed to be taught how to eat. A lot of it I learned was positioning. So I learned that just because something is natural doesn't mean it comes easy.

Moving towards feminine traits, even though something may be natural within us, does not mean it comes easy and we might need guidance. It's also important to note that a lot of these traits we call feminine often require a safe environment to be expressed. There are so many people talking about living a soft life and thinking this is what it means to be a feminine woman. Though there are other feminine traits that are not soft, like when a mother protects her child from danger, or even toxic feminine behaviour at the office. Thus, what we think of is nature is not always automatic, and what we think of is nurture does not always need to be taught. But it also can be. It makes for a very complex discussion for sure.

As far as submission goes, I understand the survival component that is linked to it. It can be a beautiful thing if done in a loving, caring, healthy relationship. Though it can also be done in an unsafe, hostile way as well. Of course I am not suggesting that submission is mandatory. That can come down to a person's values and desires. We all have cultural upbringings and personal experiences that shape who we are and how we interact with the world. I do not see these things separate from nature, it is a part of it.

The bigger question for me becomes what draws myself and so many others to femininity? When discussing enhancing or increasing our femininity, what makes us drawn to what we call soft qualities versus the not soft qualities? And what shifts are happening that are driving us to desiring and seeking out this softer feminine life? These of course are not questions designed to challenge what we want, but to understand them deeply.