The Feminine Reclaimed: Softness, Choice, and the Politics of Gender Performance

AnoushkaTanwar,

Independent Scholar,

Solan, Himachal Pradesh, India

Abstract: This paper critically explores the relationship between gender, performance, and choice in contemporary feminist discourse. Moving beyond traditional critiques of feminism as inherently restrictive, it explores how certain roles, often dismissed as regressive, can become acts of agency when consciously and freely chosen. Rather than viewing softness, domesticity, or traditionally feminine aesthetics as symptoms of internalized patriarchy, this paper suggests they can function as valid expressions of empowerment and self-definition. Drawing on current cultural phenomena, including digital aesthetics and shifting representations of gender across media, the paper argues for a more inclusive feminist framework- one that supports not only resistance but also reclamation. It acknowledges the complexities of choice in a world shaped by social conditioning, yet insists on the importance of trusting women to know their own minds. By expanding the feminist lens to include softness, intention, and non-binary expressions of gender, this work encourages a more expansive, less prescriptive vision of liberation, where power can be quiet, chosen, and unapologetically personal.

Keywords: Gender Performativity, Traditional Femininity, Choice Feminism, Feminist Agency

Introduction: Rewriting the Script

From reality TV makeovers to the hyper-curated aesthetics of Instagram, gender today is a performance. ‘Gender is a construct- so tear it apart!’ is a meme floating around on social media for some time now. While Judith Butler may not have imagined being distilled into a meme, the sentiment sticks: gender isn't something we're born into- it's something we perform, repeat, absorb, and often, unknowingly carry like a family heirloom. Feminist discourse has long explored this performance: the idea that gender is not innate but constructed, curated, and reinforced by culture. We don't emerge from the womb liking pink or blue- we are taught, nudged, and sometimes shoved into these binaries.

This paper isn't here to argue with the obvious. Yes, gender is performative. Yes, femininity has been historically coded as fragile, decorative, and subordinate. And yes, women have been socialized to play the supporting role in a story they didn't write. But here's the twist- what happens when a woman, fully aware of the script, still chooses to play the part?

Instead of simply rehashing how gender roles oppress women, this paper flips the question. Can choosing traditionally feminine roles- softness, domesticity, emotional labor- still be a feminist act? And more importantly, should feminism gatekeep which choices are empowering? Drawing from Butler’s theory of gender performativity, Juliet Mitchell’s framing of gender as ‘socially conditioned fantasy', and Michael Kimmel’s analysis of gendered socialization, this paper explores how gender roles are constructed, and how some women, especially in the age of digital aesthetics and curated identities, are consciously reclaiming them. From the ironic girl bossing of Barbie to the cottagecore homemaker on TikTok baking sourdough with one hand and subverting patriarchy with the other, we're witnessing a peculiar era of femininity- one that doesn't always want to burn the bra, but maybe lace it in pearls instead. Through theory, pop culture, Indian context, and lived contradictions, this paper argues that feminism must stretch to include softness and to trust women's choices.

This isn't a defense of patriarchy. It's a defense of choice, even when that choice looks suspiciously retro. Because maybe, true feminist freedom includes the right to say, “Yes, I know my role is scripted- but I'm rewiring the lines.”

The Gendered Stage: Scripts, Rehearsals, and the Act of Becoming

I'd like to start with the obvious guns: Judith Butler. In Gender Trouble, she says- gender is not some innate truth, but rather a performance repeated over time until it starts to feel like fact. She argues that gender isn't something we are- it's something we do. Identity comes after the act, not before. In plain terms? We are all figuring it out as we go- and some of us are doing it in very cute shoes.

Juliet Mitchell takes it a step further by calling gender a ‘socially conditioned fantasy’. And honestly, she's not wrong. From the moment a child is dressed in pink or blue, gifted a doll or a truck, and told to ‘sit like a lady' or ‘man up’, the stage is set. The costumes are handed out, the roles are whispered into ears, and before we know it, gender becomes something we embody without even realising we've been cast.

But what makes this performance so sticky is its emotional currency. Femininity, especially, isn't just about appearance- it's about behaviours, affect, posture, and silence. It's soft lighting, crossed legs, and knowing when to shrink. And while these traits are undeniably constructed and historically used to keep women in their place, they've also become aestheticized- curated, sometimes even commercialized.

This paves the way to pop culture. Barbie (2023), Greta Gerwig’s hot pink, existential fever dream, is arguably the most ironic yet sincere commentary on the very performance of femininity. Margot Robbie’s Barbie isn't trying to break free from her plastic identity; she's trying to understand why the world around her fears softness, beauty, and emotion. And in doing so, she performs a new kind of femininity- one that's self-aware, strategic, and refuses to apologise for being pretty and political.

Social media aesthetics are even messier. The soft-girl TikToks and reels, cottagecore influencers, and ‘tradwives’ who romanticize homemaking may look like they are reenacting the 1950s- but many of them do it with full awareness, often adding a wink or an ironic caption. Their hyper-curated femininity is less about submission and more about control. When you know you are performing but still choose to, does the performance become yours?

This is where Butler and Mitchell give us tools, but not always answers. They help us see how deep the gender game runs. However, not necessarily how it plays out when women know the rules and still choose to play, which is why it's important to acknowledge that femininity isn't always the site of oppression- it can also be a site of power, especially when wielded deliberately. Femininity, when chosen with full awareness, becomes something more than passive compliance; it becomes an aesthetic, a tool, even a quiet rebellion. It's not blindly conforming; it's about reclaiming softness in a world that equates power with hardness. Sometimes, wearing the dress, nurturing the home, or leaning into tenderness isn't submission- it's strategy.

Because maybe the question isn't how do we stop performing gender? Maybe the question is who gets to direct the performance now?

Soft isn't Submissive: On Aesthetics and Autonomy

First things first: ‘tradition’ doesn't exactly scream liberation. Feminist history is full of battles against the domestic ideal: the housewife in pearls and silence, the caregiver who sacrifices selfhood for everyone else's comfort. So, when a woman in 2025 says she wants to stay home, make dinner, or be ‘the soft one’ in a relationship, the reaction from some corners of feminism is loud, collective side-eye.

But here is the thing: what if she's not being oppressed- what if she is just being herself? In this section of the paper, we interrogate the assumption that all traditionally feminine roles are inherently anti-feminist. Because maybe, in trying to destroy the cage, we accidentally started mocking the bird for choosing to nest.

There is one term that is both loved and loathed in feminist discourse- choice feminism. Critics argue that within a patriarchal framework, no choice is ever truly free; fair. But at what point do we stop blaming women for the choices they make and start blaming the systems that limit what's available to them in the first place?

Let's take some examples. The cottagecore girl making sourdough from scratch isn't necessarily desperate for a husband- she might just prefer carbs and a slower life. The influencer filming ‘soft girl Sunday reset’ isn't stuck in a gender trap- she's curating aesthetics and monetising care. Even the so-called ‘tradwife’ on Instagram, lip-syncing to Lana Del Rey while folding laundry, may not be yearning for the 1950s patriarchy; she might just be craving structure, serenity, and a man who can handle a flat tire without turning it into a crisis.

In her essay Bad Feminist, Roxane Gay admits to loving pink, baking, and dancing to misogynistic rap lyrics, even as she critiques the very systems that produce them. That's what we're dealing with: complex, messy, contradictory feminism, which, honestly, is the most honest kind.

The resurgence of ultra-femininity in Gen Z culture; think hair bows, lace-trimmed everything, quiet luxury, doesn't necessarily signal regression. Instead, it speaks to a desire to reclaim softness in a hyper-masculine, hustle-obsessed world. Capitalism loves to sell empowerment as a pantsuit and a power pose- but sometimes, choosing slowness, nurturance, or emotional depth is just as radical.

Now, it is imperative to understand that there exists a huge difference between choosing softness and being expected to be soft. The problem isn't femininity; it's when femininity becomes compulsory. And I think, the quiet revolution lies in choosing it anyway.

That is where mainstream feminism needs to stretch a bit. We have spent decades telling women to break out of boxes- and rightfully so- but now we also need to stop side-eyeing the ones who decorate their box, fluff the pillows, and then sit there peacefully with a cup of matcha and a face mask because they actually like it. Because maybe the future of feminism isn't just about leaning in; it's also about lying down, listening to your body, honouring your rhythms, and admitting that power doesn't always need to look like resistance. Sometimes, it looks like refusal. And sometimes, it looks like being the softest person in the room and still being the most self-aware.

Critiquing the Critique: Is Choice Ever Truly Free?

Feminist theorists have spent decades dissecting how capitalism, tradition, caste, class, and gender all team up like a toxic Avengers squad to shape what we think we want. So no, this paper isn't arguing that we all exist in some perfectly liberated vacuum where every decision we make is pristine and untouched by conditioning.

But here is the counterpoint: if all choices are shaped by culture, then why is softness the only one we shame women for choosing?

We never question the woman who chooses to hustle 60 hours a week at a corporate job, sacrificing health and relationships for a LinkedIn badge. We applaud that, and honestly, deservedly so. But the woman who opts out who says, “I’d rather raise my kids, take care of my home, or cultivate beauty and peace as priorities”- she has suddenly internalized the patriarchy? Seems a bit hypocritical.

The Indian context complicated this further. Let's talk about choice in a society where family is often a collective project. An urban, upper-middle-class woman choosing to quit her job and manage the household isn't always doing it because her husband demanded it- sometimes she's doing it because she can, because she wants to participate in that emotional labour intentionally. The problem isn't that she made that choice. The problem is that women who make other choices are often not offered the same support.

Take Gauri Khan- interior designer, entrepreneur, mother. Did she stay in the background while Shah Rukh rose to fame? Yes. But did she later turn that space into a design empire on her own terms? Also yes. Or consider Kareena Kapoor Khan, who often publicly embraces traditional ideals like family, motherhood, and devotion- but frames them as conscious choices, not obligations.

The critique that ‘choice is never truly free' risks becoming a silencing tool itself. It assumes that all traditionally feminine choices are brainwashed outcomes, but more problematically, it assumes that the woman making those choices hasn't thought about it. And I think it's a slippery slope back to telling women we know better than them, exactly what feminism was supposed to fight.

That's not to say we let patriarchy off the hook. If a woman feels like she has no choice, that's oppression. But if a woman knows her options and still picks something that doesn't necessarily align with the feminist consensus? That's autonomy. And autonomy is the whole point. Besides, patriarchy does not just dictate who stays home- it also dictates that power must be loud, sharp, and masculine. So what if some women are rejecting that script, too? What if wearing a saree, managing a household, or raising children with intention isn't regression, but resistance to a culture that says femininity is weak?

Not all rebellion looks like fire. Some of it looks like flowers that bloom anyway. And for Gen Z, it's getting even more nuanced. Living the soft life doesn't mean surrender- it's a conscious strategy to protect your peace and energy in a world that profits off burnout. Femininity isn't being reclaimed just for aesthetics- it's being reframed for survival. In a world that rewards burnout, emotional detachment, and girlbossing to extremes; choosing slowness, emotion, and care might actually be the most radical thing.

So yes, feminism has to stay critical of power structures. But it also has to stay humble enough to recognize when women are doing things with power- even if those things don't look the way we expected.

Because maybe the question isn't ‘Is this choice feminist enough?’ Maybe it's ‘Are we listening to women enough to trust their choices?’

Masculinity and Gender Fluidity: Expanding the Gender Conversation

If gender is a performance, let's understand that women are not the only ones forced to rehearse their lines. Men have their own exhausting script- and it's suffocating, just with worse skincare.

From a young age, boys are fed a steady diet of ‘don’t cry', ‘man up’, and ‘be tough’- which sounds like emotional repression with extra steps. Masculinity, as it's socialized, isn't about freedom. It's about suppression. The result? A narrow, brittle version of manhood that punished softness, empathy, and vulnerability. Sounds familiar? It's gender binaries doing what it does best: reducing people to roles and punishing deviation.

Feminist theory, especially intersectional and queer feminism, has long argued that dismantling the gender binary benefits everyone, not just women. As long as masculinity relies on rejecting femininity, anything gentle or emotional gets treated like a flaw instead of a feature. And if softness is devalued, then anyone who embodies it- cis women, trans people, queer folks, even men who cry at movies- is seen as weak.

But culture is shifting. Slowly, yes- but it's shifting.

Take Harry Styles, who wears pearls, paints his nails, wears a skirt on the cover of Vogue, and still headlines Coachella. Or Ranveer Singh, regularly serving chaotic-good gender non-conformity in Indian fashion. Their gender performances aren't radical because they shock- they are radical because they don't care to explain. They simply exist in fluidity, reminding us that masculinity can be flamboyant, nurturing, experimental, and yes- beautiful.

And it's not just celebrities. More men are showing up in therapy, opting for co-parenting, taking paternity leave, or stepping back from the toxic hustle. The idea that masculinity must be hard, distant, or dominant is being rewritten in real time.

Gender, as it turns out, limits everyone, and any honest feminist discourse should reflect that. If we want to dismantle patriarchy, we have to stop valuing hardness over softness, logic over emotion, and dominance over nurture. We need to retire the idea that patriarchy only shortchanges women- everyone pays a price for gendered expectations. Because masculinity, when left unchecked, isn't freedom. It's a straitjacket with no room to breathe.

By recognising this, feminism expands its reach and relevance. It becomes less about ‘what women want’ (then policing those choices) and more about how everyone is being shaped by power. It begins to dismantle the myth that freedom is found in flipping roles, and instead offers the possibility of rejecting the script altogether.

The liberation of the feminine includes the right of men to embrace it, the right of non-binary people to exist outside of it, and the right of every person to make it through gender not as an obligation, but as an expression.

Because if the problem is performance, the solution is freedom; not just for women to stop acting, but for everyone to stop auditioning.

Conclusion Power, Performativity, and the Right to Stay Soft

So here we are- after dissecting scripts, performing roles, reclaiming softness, and politely side-eyeing the patriarchy. We have established that gender isn't a biological destiny- it's a learned rhythm, a dance choreographed by society, enforced through repetition, and rarely questioned until someone misses a step. But here's what this paper insists on: that missing that step can be a choice, and dancing to the same old tune, if done knowingly, can be just as radical. To reduce feminism to rebellion alone is to flatten its power. Feminism is not just the force that dismantles- it's also the space that nurtures. It must be fierce enough to shatter norms, and soft enough to cradle the women who choose them. Because true liberation is about letting women write their own lines, whether those lines look traditional, radical, or something entirely in between.

To move forward, feminism must let go of its fear of contradiction. Softness and strength can coexist. Domesticity and agency aren't mutually exclusive. As bell hooks reminds us,

‘Feminism is for Everybody’- not just the loud, the radical, or visibly rebellious. And that means making space for all kinds of performances- even the gentle ones.

By revisiting Judith Butler's theory of performativity, Juliet Mitchell's idea of fantasy, and the social shaping of gender outlined by Kimmel, this paper explores not just how gender is constructed, but how women today are consciously engaging with that construction. From the hyper-curated aesthetics of the soft girl era to homemakers reclaiming domesticity with pride, we are seeing a wave of femininity that doesn't reject tradition out of obligation, but instead, reclaims it with intention.

And that intention? That's everything. Modern feminism fails when it only celebrates women who move in one direction- outwards, upward, against. It must also honour those who move inwards, who choose stillness, who say, “Yes, I know the history- but this version is mine now”. It's easy to glorify resistance. It's harder- and more interesting- to understand that sometimes, softness is resistance. That silence, when chosen, is not submission. That care work, when valued, is power. Wearing a bindi doesn't make you less radical, and wanting to nurture doesn't make you less free.

Because maybe, in the end, the real feminist victory isn't in whether you reject the role, but in whether you choose it yourself.