But Do You Feel Safe with Him? 10 Reasons Why Performing Femininity Never Works in Love

“From my earliest memories of childhood, anxious people-pleasing defined my existence,” Umm Zakiyyah says. “It wasn’t until my late thirties that I began to even process the meaning of self-care. After that, it took several more years for me to understand the meaning and necessity of self-love. But it wasn’t until after my second divorce, when I was in my forties, that the concept of feeling emotionally safe held any meaning or significance for me at all.”

In this personal testimony, which is part memoir, part self-help, Umm Zakiyyah, internationally acclaimed author of If I Should Speak, His Other Wife, and Before You Become His Garment in Marriage, shares ten reasons why prioritizing being “feminine” as defined by the male gaze not only causes long-term harm to the woman herself, but also makes the experience of true, deeply felt love impossible. When this performative womanhood comes at the price of a woman’s authenticity, it is a sign that the woman does not feel emotionally safe in her relationship.

She says, “So often as women, we spend so much of our lives auditioning and performing for a man’s heart, wondering if he’ll be the one to finally choose us. It is only after years of this exhaustive tap dancing that we come to realize we should have focused on winning our own hearts and choosing our own selves.”