"You still look feminine", is not the compliment you think it is

Let's talk about the female body.

The female body is not allowed to just exist without garnering opinions from others. Surprisingly, not only from men. Women also love to comment on other women's bodies. Men love to comment on women's bodies to project their opinion on how we should look. Women more often comment as a way to vent their own insecurities.

As you might know, I have transformed my body quite a bit via strength training. I gained about 12-13kg compared to my starting point.

I have gotten many comments about my body over the last few years. Some positive, some negative, but the most prevailing type of opinion was more subtle: a type of comment that conveys the cultural rules that apply to the female body.

Thou shalt not look manly, is how it can effectively be summarized. Actual examples from men:

"Careful that you don't get too big!" (a warning for me not to get unattractive for the male gaze).

"Wouldn't want to encounter you in a small alley! insert boomer laugh" (as if being strong has a correlation with being able to fight. I cannot fight!).

"I don't like the muscular look on women" (most often said by middle-aged men who are objectively out of shape). Ok, thanks for your opinion.

"Oh, but you still look feminine, though" (this is meant as a compliment, to assure me that I still have my value as a woman, aka my "attractiveness" for the cis-male population).

It's this last one that grinds my gears the most.

Even if I looked like a freaking she-hulk, I am still a woman. I was born as a biological woman, I also identify as one, that should be the end of it.

It's absolute nonsense to expect women to look a certain way, and punish them for it when they aren't confirming to the cultural norms.

Everyone has muscle, I just happen to have a bit more than average these days. In men, this is celebrated, but because I was born with a vagina, it's strange for me to also want to get bigger. It's apparently so radical that it breaks the brains of some men (often men in the middle age or older category).

The other side of the coin is this: men who don't behave manly enough, also get punished for it! I know a few gentle, sweet men in my life. Awesome! My husband is one of them (I'm biased, yeah). I once called my husband "a cutie" (in Dutch: schattig) in front of a male colleague, and he actually acted repulsed. He was like, "why the fuck would you say that about a man!", strongly implying that a man cannot and should not ever want to be a cutie.

I disagree! The world would be so much nicer if everyone just let others come as they are. Men are allowed to be cute and gentle. Women are allowed to lift heavy weights and look big.

I'm so tired of gendering behavior and hobbies of people as either "male" or "female".

Can we just stop already? I'm a human being, enjoying my hobby of getting strong as fuck. It has got nothing to do with the fact that I'm a woman.