Many ways to be a woman
THANK you for including Jerramy Fine’s powerful “Hankering after a tiara doesn’t mean you can’t be a feminist” (April 3).
It explains very well the many dimensions of being a woman, and that feminine qualities and choices are just as powerful and virtuous as masculine ones.
I am an academic, and passionate about interrogating knowledge that is taken for granted or seen as the norm and scientific, whereas if you look deeper it is not.
People often say that because I’m so academic and career-focused, they never think I’m into “girly” things. Being girly does not mean you cannot be focused and clever and inquiring.
There isn’t one way of being feminine or being a woman, and we need to start looking at how we perpetuate these false notions of femininity or being feminist and truly see women and men as capable of being more than one thing and not what society often dictates we should be, which often has disastrous manifestations in relationships and in society at large.
Thank you for placing the article about Zootopia by Rosa Prince alongside Fine’s, thus showing that there are many expressions of womanhood and femininity. — Thulani Nxasana, by e-mail
Let women be women
I AM a man who believes that what the world needs is more girls in the traditional sense of the word. I am raising a girl and want her to be the girl she is and not try to be a man. I pray she will embrace her feminine self, share with the world the characteristics that make her the feminine creature she is.
Jerramy Fine’s description of what being a princess entails is also spot-on. Who would not want to see their daughter becoming all that she says a princess is? I want a woman in my life who will stand up for what she believes in (fortunately I have her, my wife), fight for those who can’t and still be loving, merciful and nurturing.
Let women be women. — Siseko Nkwintya, by e-mail