I was raised in an extremely strong matriarchy. There were triple the amount of women in my family than men, and with that came some intense lessons on how to navigate my emotions and relationships.
As many millennial women were instructed, showing emotion was an intense sign of weakness. Crying, being sad, verbally expressing love were all weak emotions that could be used against you to dominate and control you. Instead, I was to be hard, cold, aggressive, and combative when my position was challenged.
Another lesson I learned from both observation and verbal direction was to never need a man for anything. I was to work as hard as possible to ensure this and never accept a man’s help as it would immediately mean that he had control over me.
By the time I hit my 20’s, the Boss Babe and Hustle Culture had permeated mainstream media, enforcing the ideologies that were taught to me within my family structure.
The Hustle and Boss Babe Culture Shift
As a 36 year old wife and mother of a 2 and 4 year old, I can look back and see how the hustle and boss babe culture robbed women of the chance to be in what we now call a Soft Girl Era.
In the early 2000’s, the feminist agenda had shifted to mainstream media through a wave of pop culture. We were bombarded with television series’, movies, magazine articles, ads, and a plethora of other media programs elevating the hard working, single, independent woman who sacrificed everything to achieve her dream.
The portrayal of women in these publications were striving to achieve financial wealth and assets. Some of these women had love interests but they hardly ever worked out or they got in the way of their rise to fame and success.
I was completely wrapped up in this way of thinking. I was a dental assistant full-time at one office, part-time at another, and working another part-time job as a trade school instructor while going to school for my BSBA.
I was living the dream….or was I?
First Step to Soft Girl Era: Introspection
The weight of working 3 jobs while attending college and having a boyfriend was weighing on me. Sure it sounds cool to tell people that you are working 3 jobs while going to school, but all these responsibilities were attached to people.
Juggling the emotions of everyone I worked with plus my boyfriend and myself became too much for me to bear and I slowly began quitting 2 of my jobs and focusing only on my position as a trade school teacher and my degree attainment.
During this time, I started to consider what I really wanted out of life. Was it wealth? was it what others perceived as success? Was it to become a wife? Was it to have a family?
My boyfriend and I had began to discuss the way I spoke to him. How hard I was and how easily I would walk away if our conversations didn’t go the way I wanted them to. When I say I walked away, I mean I would leave the house in the middle of arguments and not speak to him until he reached out.
In the middle of our disagreements, I would speak to him very harshly as if I could careless if he stayed or if he went, when in reality, I cared very deeply if he went. I began to think on why I behaved this way and began to understand, it had a lot to do with my upbringing.
I learned that I had abandonment issues, unresolved trauma that prevented me from living in kindness, and a twisted depiction of what a women needed to be in order to protect herself. The things that I believed made me weak, were the things that actually made me strong.
Second Step to Soft Girl Era: Femininity is not Weakness
According to Psychology Today, feminine traits include empathy, expressiveness, honesty, love, kindness, and nurturing https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/real-women/201504/are-you-rejecting-your-feminine-traits.
As stated in the beginning of this blog, these were all things that I was taught made me a weak person. Things that I understood were to be avoided in order to protect myself against domination.
What I learned from my own change in behavior was that these very things made me stronger. They allowed me to live in my divine truth, the right I was granted in the womb.
A feminine woman is not a weak person that opens the door to male domination; on the contrary, women are powerful people. Women are born with a skill set that allows us to maneuver the world in a naturally protective way without the stress of being something we are not: men.
Publications will tell you that femininity is the way you dress, the way you put on make-up, the way you look. These are all false claims. Femininity is a law that lives within us. It is not merely the way we look, it is the very nature of our existence. It encompasses decrees that the most skilled scientist would not be able to lay out in full detail thus revoking the ability for anyone to direct a woman on how to be more or less feminine.
Third Step to Soft Girl Era: Your Power Has Limits
Women have been told that we can have it all and do it all at the same dang time! While we are able to multi-task, we don’t have to take on the world as our power has limits.
I understand that we are given tasks to perform, whether that be at work or in our own personal calling, we all have responsibilities that we have to prioritize. Everything worth having requires sacrifices of time, effort, money, etc. and we have to utilize our power to determine which is more important to handle and at what time.
We also have the power to say no! When our plate is already full, we can choose to say, “No thank you, my plate is full but when I am done, I will consider your request.” The way we use our power belongs to us and the way we waste it is our burden to carry.
As women, we may feel that we have to do it all in order for things to move in the direction we want them to go, but the most important movement, is the one happening within your heart, mind, and soul. In order to strengthen and retain our power, we must rely on The Most High God to direct us on what is the most important and instruct us on what is not worth our efforts.
Psalms 46:5
God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at the break of day.
With Love,
Mother Ocia