How I Stopped Failing at Femininity

I used to be shackled by distorted notions of the meaning of my vagina.

I thought it required I be docile, unconditionally pleasant, agreeable, subservient, visually appealing and shiny—but not too shiny—I wouldn’t want too much attention.

I didn’t know how to do any of that. I thought I was failing at femininity. But really, I was failing to grasp what true femininity was.

These were private fears. A secret shame in my feminine nature. My mother was, and is, a feminist who kept her last name when she married my father, worked passionately for Planned Parenthood and refused to be shoved into a box of archaic social expectations.