Since old, the woman is seen as a second the self of humanity. Men are warriors, and the women are servants, who try their best to please, nature and tender the warriors to enable them achieve their heroic aspirations. For those men who enjoy the sits of power, women become their queen, second in command in the royal throne. Although this is the general belief of the society, many women have brought great achievement in the past and the present in many fields that they have authority. In addition, wealthy women exist in these times, little aid they require from men, even on the physical making this belief of the society weak and outdated. Notably, this woman of the old defined the term femininity.
On scale, femininity is a term that describes the social position of an emasculate human being. It has characteristics of sensitivity, empathy, and an astonishing sense of gentleness, submissiveness, pleasantness and nurturing. Masculinity on the other hand has characteristics of leadership, pro-activeness, decisiveness, assertiveness and strength. These definitions were proven even in mythological statement and literature of the past. A good example of such is Cinderella, in the beginning of the story the aspect of wealth is attributed to the man, who is Cinderella’s father and a second to him is the ‘wife’. In this literature, the wealth of the family, which may be attained by struggles of the two couples is directly given to the man, even after they “lived happily for a long time” (Jacob, Grimm). This notion makes women appear poor and only interested in wealthy men to strive for them. In addition, it shows that women work in the direction of achieving wealth that can make the society better. In this civilized age, not many people attribute money to one person except in the case of wealth from inventions and discoveries. From the literature, marriage is considered a thing for the men. Men are the ones who marry. The woman has to wait for a man to see her and marry her. No woman can approach and ask him if she can marry him. For this to happen she has to cross boundaries with her beauty, in order to get the man of her dreams who may just ignore her even after much suffering. The woman’s femininity that makes her desire a man can move her to great pain. “Take this knife and if the slipper is to tight cut off your foot. It will hurt a little, but what pain is that.” The mother of the three sisters in Cinderella’s story advised his daughters. The fact that they wanted to get married they cut of part of their feet in order to fit the shoes of Cinderella. In this, the woman has transgressed the realm of humanity just for a prince. Furthermore, this aspect introduces a new myth of femininity in the past: greed. Due to greed, the sisters had to cut their fit and bleed so that they can become rich. Their mother only saw it worthy that her daughters lose their feet, become crippled, than loose the wealth and power that come with royalty.
In the same literature, femininity is also associated with weakness of the heart. After her mother’s death, Cinderella cried too much that her tear provide the tree planted on her mother’s grave with all the water that it needed to grow. Her father has not been recorded is crying or doing anything pertaining his loving wife’s demise. He only marries another wife to fill the void of a ‘wife’ that her first love had left. Notably, this mythological book associates femininity with specific roles in the house. Cinderella, though a maid, has to do all household chores that are to be done by the members of the whole family. She checks the peas and guards the house, her father on the other hand is unheard off in the house, paving way for humiliation from Cinderella’s stepsiblings. To boot, the feminine part of the society of the past is only associated with giving. Cinderella’s mother is called in union with his husband, when she gave birth to Cinderella, “together they had a single daughter” (Jacob, Grim).
In the case of leadership, the king is the rule maker, the queen is just a helper that the king has chosen and marries when he was a prince, the king in the story sets a ball, to which Cinderella’s sister attend so that they chosen as queens. If the prince decides that he does not want a wife then the kingdom will have n queen, the men make decisions.
It is important, that everyone should understand that a woman is different in nature, but the practical same of a man. A woman can own wealth, be a leader, be brave, at the same time be a mother, a lover, and have all aspects of femininity. Nevertheless, this does not mean she is weak. The special ability that she has have contained peace in home, mend ribbons of torn up countries and diluted tribal propaganda in different places of the earth. Civilization is the key. Little Cinderella had the power to hold and care for a family which hated her, but still had the compassion to smile with them after long humiliation. She held her peace due to her femininity and left with the king, without harming her stepsisters. This is a key in religion and humanity for the greater good. To reality, the woman is the first leader anyone has, because she is the mother, the mentor and the protector of a helpless child.
References
Fausto-Sterling, A. (1985). Myths of gender: Biological theories about women and men. New York: Basic Books.
Macdonald, M. (1995). Representing women: Myths of femininity in the popular media. London: E. Arnold.
