The Softness In Surviving: A Feminist Argument For Tenderness
Tenderness is not the absence of strength—it is strength made conscious, compassion with a backbone, softness sharpened by choice. And in a world that mistakes cruelty for control, tenderness becomes an act of quiet rebellion. For women, it always has been.
We are taught, almost from the cradle, that to survive in a man’s world is to sharpen our edges. To be louder, faster, smarter, more relentless. To take up space and hold it with the ferocity of a hurricane. We are taught that softness is weakness, that gentleness is a vulnerability we cannot afford. And yet, for generations, women have survived by being exactly that—soft. Soft like silk. Soft like steel.
I have come to believe that this softness is not a surrender. It is not passivity. It is resistance in its most intimate form.
The Inheritance of Armour
When a woman survives abuse, betrayal, discrimination, or the slow-burn exhaustion of being underestimated, we often look for signs of her anger. Her rage feels logical to us. We recognize it. We want her to fight back, to scream, to roar.
But what of the woman who whispers instead? Who plants gardens. Who holds her daughter through her own grief. Who writes poems in the margins of her journal. Who chooses empathy even when she is exhausted. Who forgives—not to absolve the guilty, but to free herself from the anchor of bitterness.
In her 1980 speech, The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action, Audre Lorde wrote, “My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you” (Lorde, 1984). But even as she called women to speak, she reminded us: survival doesn’t always sound like a battle cry. Sometimes, it sounds like a lullaby.
The feminist movement has long been associated with fire. And rightly so. There is so much to burn. But after the ashes, we must also learn to plant. As poet Nayyirah Waheed writes, “you broke the ocean in half to be here / only to meet nothing that wants you”—a quote that speaks not only to pain, but to the relentless tenderness it takes to keep showing up anyway (Salt, 2013).
The Revolution of Gentle Things
In a culture of overachievement and overexposure, kindness is radical. Slowing down is radical. Saying, “I see your pain and I will not run from it,” is revolutionary.
We live in a world where women are punished either way. Too kind, and we’re doormats. Too angry, and we’re difficult. Too accommodating, and we’re weak. Too assertive, and we’re threats.
So what happens when we reject that entire dichotomy?
When we allow our tenderness to become our compass?
When we love each other loudly, nurture one another without apology, and create space for softness even when the world demands our fists?
That is where the revolution begins. In the living rooms. In the kitchens. In whispered I love yous and cups of tea passed from trembling hands. It begins when we hold one another’s stories not as weapons, but as sacred texts.
There is a reason the word womb shares linguistic roots with warmth. Feminism must make room for both the burn and the balm.
Tenderness As Ancestral Survival
Softness is in our bones. It is in the lullabies our mothers hummed beneath their breath while stirring pots of soup. It is in the care passed down through matrilineal lines, in the way grandmothers taught us to wrap wounds and pronounce words like enough and no more without raising our voices.
To be soft in a hard world is to remember that our grandmothers survived not only war and famine and patriarchy—but also each other. And they survived through connection. Through braiding hair and mending hems and pouring another cup of coffee when words wouldn’t come.
Brené Brown writes, “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change” (Daring Greatly, 2012). But I would go further and say: vulnerability is the birthplace of survival—particularly for women. When we were not allowed to fight, we nourished. When we could not run, we reached. When we were caged, we sang lullabies through the bars.
And we survived.
What We Pass Down: Raising Daughters With Open Hands
We owe the next generation a world where they do not have to unlearn tenderness in order to be safe.
Let our daughters inherit fire—but let them inherit warmth, too. Let them know that softness is not something they need to grow out of. That their open hearts are not flaws to be fixed, but gifts to be protected.
Let them see that a woman’s power doesn’t always look like protest. Sometimes it looks like staying. Like healing. Like weeping for a friend and holding her hand anyway. Like choosing peace when revenge could have been easier.
We raise our daughters to be strong—but let’s also raise them to be whole.
The Future We Can Feel: A Feminist Utopia Rooted in Gentleness
If there is a future worth fighting for, it must be a future where tenderness is safe again. Where empathy is no longer mistaken for fragility. Where caregiving is honoured, not expected without recognition. Where emotional labour is not the unpaid tax of womanhood, but a shared human responsibility.
In The Care Manifesto, The Care Collective writes, “Care is not something confined to the private domain of family and close friends. It is the connective tissue of society, the glue that holds everything together” (2020). A feminist world must be built on this foundation—not just a redistribution of power, but a redefinition of what power is.
Imagine a world where policy is shaped by empathy. Where leaders cry and mean it. Where touch is consensual and sacred. Where apology is not seen as weakness, but as wisdom. Where we honour the people who hold the world together, not just the ones who shout the loudest while it cracks.
That is the world I want.
That is the softness I believe in.
Soft Does Not Mean Small
I am a woman who writes through her scars. Who mothers gently. Who kisses her husband like a prayer and teaches her daughters that love can be a weapon if we let it. But it can also be the thing that saves us.
We are made of stardust and salt water and skin that bruises easily—but heals just as fast. We are resilient not in spite ofour softness, but because of it.
Tenderness is not the opposite of resistance.
It is resistance.
It is the hand that stays open.
The voice that refuses to scream when a whisper will do.
The arms that hold, even when they are tired.
The softness in surviving.
And the power of choosing it again, and again, and again.
References
Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Crossing Press, 1984.
Waheed, Nayyirah. Salt. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013.
Brown, Brené. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Gotham Books, 2012.
The Care Collective. The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence. Verso, 2020.
