Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More

by Janet Mock

But I knew even as a teenager that my femininity was more than just adornments; they were extensions of me, enabling me to express myself and my identity. My body, my clothes, and my makeup are on purpose, just as I am on purpose.

I stopped being really into femininity around my junior year of high school. After junior year, I started buying some more feminine clothes again sometimes. after I dropped out, I got into makeup and learned that for some reason, no hairdresser in my life of 18 years at that time ever told me to put product in my curly, thick hair or even just add more conditioner after showering if I couldn’t buy product. So I learned to love my hair also. But Los Angeles is where I really got back to my girly, feminine side. That was something I really enjoyed because of how much I was fighting against to be a strong, successful woman of color in a world that seemed at some times not to want strong women of color to be successful. My femininity has always been an extension of myself but I only got to enjoy that with my love of fashion in magazines and watching runway shows on fashion tv on the weekends for a while. It’s great to enjoy that as my life and in my being every day like I learned to here in L.A.