Femininity-focused Instagram profiles are on the rise, but what do they teach us about being the person we want to be?
Summer has arrived and through the hayfevered mists it’s clear to see the femininity industry is thriving. It smells amazing. The parks, the streets, they’re alive with flicky skirts, clicky heels, bronzer dusted 2cm thick in order to make up for those lost lockdown months. I have purchased a tinted lipbalm, some herbal tea and a pair of high-leg period pants this week alone. But it’s not just the vanilla-scented accessories of femininity that are available to buy today; no, these are simply the scaffolding on which the project leans.
A piece I read on Refinery29 this week introduced to me the trend of “femininity coaching”, and the rise of femininity-focused Instagram profiles. Sami Wunder earns more than £1m a year coaching “high-achieving women” on how to “attract lasting romantic love” by teaching them how to use their “feminine energy” and refrain from masculine “doing” or “giving”. The Instagram account, Levels of Women, has 16,500 followers, here for content from a psychologist whose advice includes “learn to cook”, “never swear” and “don’t be impressed by a man’s wealth unless he’s spending it on you”. Instinctively, I bristle. Of course I do, a person so slathered in various posts of feminism I must complete a mental guilt worksheet before I allow myself to shave even my shins. But the timing of this trend, it interests me.
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