Femininity — constructed and contested

Femininity as a social script has been assembled from what power found useful: softness, availability, aesthetic presentation, the containment of female intelligence within forms acceptable to male comfort. Juana encountered its enforcement directly — repeatedly told to put down her pen and pick up needlework, as if the problem were the topic and not the presumption that knowledge had a gender. What is called natural femininity is almost always the residue of what women were permitted to be and taught to want.