DevilKisses wrote:
EnmaLionheart wrote:
DevilKisses wrote:
I love cute cats, bunnies and puppies. Someone called that girly. I don't think I'm super girly.
It's pretty much girly. In actuality you should just do you and not worry about others.
Why is it considered girly?
Because kittens and puppies are babies, and expressing maternal instincts is expected of women in our culture. Bunnies & cats are likewise associated with domesticity. They were animals that were in the women's domain of The Household rather than the outdoor cattle, buffalo and uh...wolverines, or something that the men dealt with. Also, neonatal looking animals really do trigger maternal responses (neurotransmitters, brain activity on a fMRI) in many women. Problem is, they also trigger responses in many men, too so they should really be called, "parental" responses. Except that they also trigger them in children so they should really-really be called "caring" responses.
Especially in the Elizabethan & Victorian eras, the cultural expectations for girls/women were that they should be demure, domesticated and damn near inert in both body and mind. Sweating was out, getting dirty was out, thinking was out, hunting or other exposure to large, dirty, dangerous animals was out. Small, harmless animals were considered acceptable up to a point...all because women were thought to be so frail that such things would be overwhelming. It was gaslighting on a massive scale.
The Yellow Wall Paper By Charlotte Perkins GilmanIn the early 20th century, those bits of cultural memory became marketing tools. After WWII (during which women worked assembly lines & riveted warships together) and later during the Cold War, sex & gender roles once again assumed a pure binary at least in cultural expectations. Marketers followed and enhanced the differences for better sales figures. This waxed and waned until again after 9/11 the pendulum swung so far that layette could only be found in blue or pink. There is also a somewhat conservative religious influence that has to be considered. And now the pendulum is swinging yet back again...
If you love cute cats, bunnies and puppies it doesn't *have* to be because it is the girly thing to do. I could just be because you like them and they make you happy.
_________________
“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
―Carl Sagan