“What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.”
—Susan Sontag
I’ve thought a lot about this. About how we’ve been trained to split ourselves in half — to believe strength and softness can’t live in the same body.
We’re told that men must be hard, and women must be soft. Men should be providers, protectors, problem-solvers. Women, nurturers, feelers, forgivers. But when you pay attention to real people — to real lives — that divide doesn’t hold.
I’ve seen a man cradle his baby with tears in his eyes. I’ve seen a woman stand steady in a storm, unmoved by the weight pressing on her. I’ve seen courage cloaked in softness. I’ve seen tenderness that never made a person weak — only more human.
I think of the acacia tree — strong, rooted, defiant in dry places. And yet when the rains come, its leaves soften and open wide, receiving what it needs. It knows how to be both: resilient and receptive. There’s beauty in that balance.
What’s most beautiful, Sontag reminds us, is not how well we perform our roles, but how fully we embody our humanness.
When a man allows vulnerability to rise, that flicker of gentleness makes him no less strong — it makes him more whole. And when a woman steps into her power — into her clarity, her fire, her no — she doesn’t become less feminine. She becomes more alive.
Real beauty often lives in the places we were told to hide. In the voice a man was taught to silence. In the boundaries a woman was told not to set. In the softness a father never learned how to show. In the ambition a daughter was told to tone down.
So maybe the work is to stop cutting ourselves in half.
To let tenderness live beside strength. To let assertiveness sit next to grace. To become people who feel deeply and stand firmly. People who are allowed to hold complexity — without shame.
It’s not about becoming someone else. It’s about becoming more of who we already are. Fully human. Deeply honest. Beautifully whole.