Not a bad question, Javyn.
This makes me think of the famous "Ain't I a woman?" speech that Sojourner Truth delivered at the seminal event of the Women's Sufferage movement, the Seneca Falls convention. In answer to a white clergy man's premise that women were innately inferior to men due to them naturally being the weaker vessel, she pulled herself up to her full 6'0" and let the entire room know that though she worked like a man all day long she knew the pain of childbirth as well and the loss of those babes to slavery. It brought down the house. But it also pointed to the notion of what makes feminity.
I have seen women of many cultures display degrees of feistiness though some may be masked in feminine dress, mother guilt or being the power behind the throne. Black women, at least here in the US, coming out of the legacy of slavery have often been placed in the position of the primary bread winner, treated as beasts of burden and stereotyped as the female equivalent of her male counterpart. She has been seen as a sex object, sexually voracious and domineering on one hand and asexual ball buster on the other. Is this true? THere are always women who will fit the bill, but there are as many others who very well fit the most European standards of feminity. Much of what you may see are socio economic symptoms. When someone has to be the sole provider, chief cook and bottle washer, her softer feminine side may not necessarily be evident.
Within the black community being a strong black woman is not necessarily viewed as a bad thing. However, how some end up manifesting that strength when their cup hath run over is a very different thing.
