Effeminacy

Effeminacy is the lack of masculinity where it ought to be. In that sense, only men can be effeminate, and in classical discussions of this vice that’s how it was presented. Effeminacy is a softness in men that prevents them from fulfilling their peculiarly masculine responsibilities. The term could also apply to speech or mannerisms, but I’m most interested in its ethical usage here.

Imagine a group of guys and girls are watching a horror movie (not something I recommend, but bear with me). If the one girls get scared, no one thinks she is somehow less of a woman. No one tells her she has to “tun in her woman card.” But if one of the guys gets scared, the other males will probably give him a hard time and the girls are likely to be repulsed by his fear. And that’s because he is acting effeminate. Men are not supposed to get scared at horror movies because men have responsibilities that require bravery. Women can and should be brave at times too, but bravery is not part of femininity *in the same way* that it is part of masculinity. Courage has classically been considered a masculine virtue. All people should be courageous, but especially men, and its absence in men is a much greater problem.

If a husband and wife are walking down a dark alley, and a mugger jumps out to rob or otherwise harm them, we expect the man to put himself in harm’s way, to confront the mugger or otherwise position himself between his wife and the source of danger. If he fails to do so, we call him a coward and say that he was effeminate. But if the woman instinctively jumps behind her husband so that he can protect her, we do not call her effeminate because we do not expect her to be his protector and we do not expect her to be the one to confront the danger.

If a married couple is sleeping in bed and they hear a noise in the basement, whose job is it to go check it out? A man who sends his wife to see what’s going on is being a effeminate. But a women who waits in the bedroom while her husband goes to find out the source of the noise is not being effeminate because checking out scary noises is not her job. 

And so on. Calling a man effeminate is NOT an insult to women, its an insult to the man. And it does not mean that femininity is bad because effeminacy has nothing to do with femininity. We want our women to be feminine – femininity is women in glorious. But we also want our men to be masculine. Effeminacy in men is terrible – and it’s terrible precisely because it keeps them from fulfilling their obligations to women and children.

Effeminacy is when *men* lack masculine virtues needed to fulfill their responsibilities towards others. Technically, a woman cannot be effeminate. For example, in Scripture when God judges a nation, he says their soldiers will become like women (eg, Nahum 3:13). This  is not an insult to women because men (not women) are responsible for the defense of the nation. A man who acts as a coward on the battlefield is effeminate – he has failed as a man. A woman who fled in similar conditions has not failed as a woman because it was not her responsibility to begin with. 

In Genesis 3, it was not the woman’s job to guard the garden. She did not fail as a woman by not crushing the serpent’s head. Adam had the responsibility to guard the garden and failed – that act of cowardice, that failure to fulfill his particularly masculine responsibility, was an act of effeminacy.