The awareness of my own femininity struck me for the first time when I became a university student. After a cloudless childhood in a family of a marine scientist, where no such thing as femininity or sexuality had ever been mentioned at all, I suddenly found myself living in a student dorm and being surrounded with hundreds of absolutely awesome-looking girls, whose main goal in life (as it seemed to me) was to look

Femininity is a skill that can and should be developed through life.

impeccable and beat the fierce competition for the three boys, who happened to be the only three male students in the whole Foreign Languages Department. As I watched how skillfully my fellow-girls could fight between each other for a time in a shower room and then immediately turn into innocent angels because a male species would turn up in the doorway, I admired their talents and thought to myself that I would never learn that science. A year later, by the beginning of my sophomore year, I caught myself practicing the “science”, too: I learned to do it so well that our male professor of phonetics (oh, he was as hot as George Clooney!) seemed to have a crush on me, which even made me the “queen of the bitches” for a while. It was the time when I realized that femininity, though probably being an inborn quality of some women, can and should be developed, fostered, fed, and never left to chance. Later, when I started working as a relationship coach, my numerous meetings with women gave me more awareness… and more confidence in my own femininity.

A woman is not defined by the way she looks, but by the way she behaves.

I realized two things: first, that just being beautiful or knowing how to wear awesome make-up is not enough and second, as unusual as it may sound, that femininity and sexuality are quite different things. While sexuality is a quality that determines a woman’s relationship with other people, femininity is always a part of her nature, the basis of her personality, the trendsetter of her style, a substance contained in her blood. This is why a woman is not defined by the way she looks, but by the way she behaves.

I used to read many magazine articles suggesting tips about how a woman could look more feminine. Those advice were good, but to me they did not have enough value when taken just as they were. I believed that to become really feminine, a woman needed to change her whole personality. Here are a few ideas from my own diary, which I had when I was a student.

• Learn to move gently. Avoid Arguments, work on your intonation and, of course, on your vocabulary.
• Do not swear. Never.
• Be cool, but don’t be baited into arguments by people who can’t respect you. Be mature enough to know when your presence is needed somewhere.
• Soften up and speak Softly. What can be more feminine than a girl who cares about the way other people perceive her? Learn to carry yourself with dignity regardless of who you are talking to.
• Be ready to face the fact that when you bring yourself to the level of a man, you will be treated like a man. A classy lady can always find ways to express herself with words that don’t offend others.
• Be yourself and love yourself for who you are. Just live up to your own expectations. Remember, that all choices in life are yours: you are the one in charge of choosing which lifestyle is the right one for you, so it’s only your concern; and, of course,
• Read, learn, grow! Take every opportunity that comes. When there is no opportunity, create one! Be persistent, but not aggressive; be strong, but not sharp; treasure harmony in everything you do, say, or think.
• Your femininity is not defined by what you do or how you do it, it is defined by the way you relate to other people and to yourself. It reflects your attitudes to learning and developing as a mature, reasonable person. It reflects your kindness and your compassion.
• The way you think and act will always echo back to you. For that reason, a woman should not just look feminine, she should really be supportive, positive, and loving to everyone around. Isn’t it a natural part of female nature? By showing people that she cares for them, a woman sets up the ground for what she believes in.

So, I guess, the solution is simple, yet it takes lots of effort to reach. Femininity cannot  be drawn on a woman’s face with the help of lipstick and brushes, a woman needs to work on her personality first, and then skill up with make up or take care of her hair, nails, heels and purses, because appearance only works to support our self-awareness and self-recognition, not the other way around.