Where I'm from, the sexes are very much distinguished. Nearly all women here have what we refer to as feminine wiles or "psychic-like powers" of persuasion, using empathy and being able to read a situation or person. We don't use it for our own selfish gain, like eliciting attention from males (pretending to be all sweet and considerate)- we call that, playing the damsel or may consider them a social opportunist, but as a way to improve a situation for those around us. Women that don't take care of their appearance, like always wearing jeans, are often labeled as lazy here. I even had a man tell me once that the first thing he paid attention to on a woman is how much effort she put into taking care of herself, because that means she probably keeps the *rest* of her body clean and manicured. It makes sense.
The definition of femininity varies all over the world though, so it may not be that way somewhere else. The highly educated but family-oriented Southern Belle is an icon for many women in my area. We exaggerate everything towards the feminine side, especially our accents. These women enjoy being feminine, we don't consider it a weakness. I cannot recall ever seeing a man clean an entire house, they don't usually do housework here (doing something a man doesn't want to do gives her some serious power in the relationship). When something exciting happens, we jump up and down about it- men don't usually do that... Most people have both masculine and feminine traits, I think labeling someone with that is simply assigning which 'default' character they use the most. As far as daily goings, I usually reside in the middle or the 'feminine' default, depending upon which hat I'm wearing. I can be too assertive at times, but that is also a trait mothers have to learn. I can be quite aggressive when I sense people of low character.
Hard as Oak and Sweet as Honeysuckle.
