Femininity vs. Masculinity
Femininity & Masculinity as a fluid concept:
When we typically think about the feminine or the masculine, we may have different experiences for what we consider it to be. There are two understandings of these definitions as they lay: 1- being that the traditional way of presenting feminine or masculine in terms of the laid our social gender binary; 2- being however you experience your idenitity in your gender and sexuality is how it exists to you. These mean that there are lots of ways to experience each of these feelings, there are several ways of expressing these identities. Both of these idenitities overlap, and intertwine, into all of our lives, so its unlikely that you ever only feel one of them.
As we grow up there are a lot of ways that people imprint on another, and on the larger scale there are social systems (societial norms) that imprint on us as well. Some of these social systems are effective by having us make assumptions about our life's purpose. To have a gender or sexual identity is completely up to you, and don't really carry any weight that you don't want them too. There is fluidity in any identity because all of us learn over time about who we are.
All of these terms and understandings come from our prior knowlegde of Sexism and its place as a Social System. Sexism has primarily been used in our history to pritize the white wealthy male ideals which caused women to be abused and seen as property until the more recent century. This is not to ignore the tole sexism has taken on the male community. Femininity and Masculinity are uniquely used against people to make it seem as though your sex at birth has any implication in the way your life must go, or what roles you must take. When it comes to the ways these ideals can effect us mentally, we have to try really hard to evaluate the ways it has impacted us so far.
Toxic Masculinity is a term typically used to describe the obscene expectations for male identifying members to provide for their family, to be mentally tough and emotionally absent, and to be overtly sexually knowledgeable.
Hyper-Femininity, is a term typically used to describe the ways that women have been expected to be perfect at being caretaker, birthing and raising of children, time management, being pretty and/or having the perfect body, being the best sex object, etc. There are several pressures put on women in the current society, especially when it comes to work/life balance.
Also many AFAB individuals are expected to act as though they don't menstruate in all professional or public settings. Even in some private areas or around conservative family members, women are expected to completely ignore the prescence of their menstrual cycles and it's implications on daily tasks.