It’s another year of “Soft Girl Summer,” a season of relishing feminine pursuits and the finer side of life. I enthusiastically proclaimed my support for the endeavor last year and maintain it this. But some have accused anything in the category of “soft life” as girlish laziness and a flight from challenges of real life.
“Nonsense,” I say. The soft life benefits women. For any woman who came of age in the past 30 years, there was a steady drumbeat of aggressive ambition. We were exhorted always to “give 110 percent,” the impossibility of which was supposed to be no reason to deter us. The show “America’s Next Top Model” captured a cultural trope: The winner was said to be the one who “wanted it the most.” The implication was that whoever wanted to win would work harder than anyone to achieve her victory.
The results? A generation of women who commonly refer to themselves as “Type A.” Is this grade inflation in realm of personality or is this a cohort of females raised in a way that encourages neuroticism and controlling tendencies? Unfortunately, it appears likely to be the latter. These are the straight-A students, the organizers, the girl bosses who hustle, the “leaders,” the women who will not take “no” for an answer.
That may sound well and good until you see the shine start to wear off. Mindy Pelz refers to the condition known as Rushing Woman’s Syndrome. As women approach 40 in demanding careers with the competing demands of childbearing and the care of aging parents, they start to break down. This is not merely a figure of speech, as many women discover. Clumps of hair fall out, metabolic processes go awry, and the center cannot hold.
I’m reminded of a divorced career woman of the infamous Boomer generation who proclaimed wearily, “We wanted it all, and, boy, did we get it!” Evidently, the lack of introspection that can accompany people in constant motion resulted in the Boomers foisting their busybody living on the next generation of women without amending it.
The model of “grinding” out work, of relentless consistency, of ceaseless focus: this is not a good strategy for many women. This is not to say that women cannot accomplish feats in technical professions, teaching, and the arts. They can, and they have. But not all at once. Allowing work and life to ebb and flow can be a great boon to productivity and to health.
The beauty of soft girl summer is that it defines a season. Being soft should not be an all-the-time way of living. But for a time, we can nurture the delicacies of life. Embroidery and piano playing, candlelight and manicures. Baking and tapestries. None of these endeavors are necessary. They embellish the bare necessities of living and add depth to our ordinary days.
The woman who learns to cultivate softness can more easily become attuned to that elusive power of feminine energy. It’s often misunderstood and utterly infuriating to many people who fail to understand it. For the person with feminine energy, some things are simply effortless. That is not to say that her life is without work, that the world is without suffering, or that she will “manifest” every passing desire. But it is to say, the woman who relinquishes the limiting belief that she must control, her playful desires can elicit beautiful results in a way that can truly feel effortless.
The word has been on my mind since it was used by Jennifer L. Scott. An author and influencer, she picks a word to focus on each year, and for this year chose “effortless.” Like so many women, she had unconsciously absorbed a sense that working meant struggling. If something was not difficult, it wasn’t really accomplishing something.
Rather than wrestling with our circumstances and the people around us, we can sometimes cheerfully accept them as they are and seamlessly bring about something beautiful. Soft summer and soft life can morph into laziness, there is no doubt about it. That is what makes the art of simplifying and allowing the softer side surprisingly complex. Pursuing a difficult feat with a spirit of ease is difficult, indeed. But won’t it also be fun?
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