The Privilege of Choice: Being Independent… and Still Choosing Softness

Choice is quiet.

Right up to the moment you realise not everyone has it.

It started with two friends, a slow Sunday morning coffee, and a view so good it briefly made Time irrelevant: which is rare.

Somewhere between admiring the landscape and refilling our cups, the conversation drifted into one of those topics that sounds simple until you actually try to answer it.

What does it mean to be feminine today?

For decades the goal of equality was clear: freedom. The freedom to work, earn money, make decisions, and not depend on a man to survive.

A pretty good objective. Hard won, too.

But once that freedom arrived, another question quietly slipped into the room.

If equality gives us the right to live however we want, does it mean men and women should behave in the exact same manner, too?

My friend smiled when that question came up. She told me that when she first moved to the Netherlands, she mostly watched how people behaved around each other. One thing struck her almost immediately: the atmosphere often felt very unisex.

Not bad. Not good. Just… blurred.

She told me she had even mentioned this to her therapist once, half joking, half confused: she felt like she was slowly losing the sense of what counted as masculine and what counted as feminine.

Then she told me a small story that captured the feeling perfectly.

She had bought a bicycle. Later, she returned it.

"I realised this is a masculine bike," she told the shop assistant. "The upper frame is too high. Sometimes I want to wear a dress."

The assistant apparently stared at her as if she had said something slightly inappropriate.

And of course, some men might want to wear skirts too. But the reality is quite simple: men and women are not identical. Our bodies are structured differently. Hormones behave differently. Strength is distributed differently. Even the rhythm of the body is different: female physiology operates on a longer hormonal cycle, while the typical male hormonal cycle resets roughly every twenty-four hours.

Acknowledging difference does not cancel equality.

It acknowledges reality.

As the conversation continued, we circled a familiar idea: people in general often talk about masculine and feminine "energy". The language can sound mystical, but the underlying observation is fairly practical.

Some qualities tend to move outward:

• structure, direction, action, holding things together. 

Others move inward:

• receptivity, intuition, nurturing, allowing things to unfold.

Most of us carry both.

Without some structure, softness dissolves into chaos. Without softness, structure becomes rigid.

You need one to hold the other.

Modern women, of course, have become very fluent in the structural side of life. Careers, independence, financial responsibility, decision making: this is everyday territory now.

And that is a good thing.

The generations before us fought hard for those freedoms: thinkers and voices like Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Wisława Szymborska, Maria Teresa Horta, and many others pushed that door open.

Still, the body occasionally reminds us that difference exists.

At some point, my friend remembered a moment from a handstand class. A student had asked why her body kept falling into a banana-shaped curve. Movement teachers often see the same pattern: many women rely more on flexibility and stacking alignment, while men rely more on shoulder strength.

Different structures. Different strategies.

When my friend casually mentioned that “women are, on average, physically weaker than men”, someone in the class reacted as if she had said something outrageous.

Which is revealing.

Because recognising difference does not diminish women. This is anatomy.

Women carry strengths men do not.

Our bodies create life. Our cycles shape emotional rhythms. Many women cultivate forms of care and emotional steadiness that quietly hold families and communities together.

Different strengths. Not lesser ones.

This is something I see often in yoga classes, too.

At the end of class, when everyone finally lies down, I sometimes give very simple instructions.

Allow the belly to soften.

Let the hips drop.

Let the body feel heavy.

You would be surprised how difficult this can be.

Many women stay slightly contracted, slightly alert, as if the body is still waiting for the next task.

Constant readiness has become normal.

But softness requires permission.

And sometimes that permission feels unfamiliar.

Our conversation eventually drifted toward relationships.

There is an observation many people quietly recognise: men often feel most alive in a relationship when they feel useful, respected, and needed.

Not needed for survival. Needed in the sense that their contribution matters.

Allowing that space does not erase a woman's independence.

It simply removes the need to compete.

For example. I can drive perfectly well, I love it.

But sometimes I let the man drive. Not because I cannot do it, but because proving that I can does not particularly matter to me.

Sometimes it is simply pleasant to enjoy the ride.

Complementarity tends to work better than competition.

And this pattern appears in many types of relationships, including same sex couples. One person leans more into structure, the other more into receptivity. The balance shifts naturally.

Later, the conversation came back to me from a slightly different angle.

Not as a debate. More as a quiet observation about how people move through the world.

Most of us carry both currents: the part that acts, builds, decides, and holds things together. And the part that receives, senses, softens, allows things to unfold.

Some lean more towards one. Some towards the other.

And most of us move between the two depending on the moment, the stage of life, or the person standing in front of us.

Perhaps that is what we were really circling earlier over coffee.

Not a rule about how women or men should behave.

But the freedom to notice which energy feels natural to us. And the generosity to allow the other person theirs.

Some - men, women, non-binary -  will feel most themselves when they lead, organise, and structure. Others will feel most at home in intuition, softness, and receptivity.

Most of us carry both.

Relationships become easier when those differences stop being a competition.

When one person can step forward and the other can soften.

When both know they could do either.

Maybe that is the quiet balance.

Not sameness.

Not hierarchy.

Just space.