"We must keep both our femininity and our strength"
About this Quote
Indra Devi’s line lands like a corrective to a culture that keeps trying to make women choose: be soft or be formidable, be desirable or be taken seriously. “Must” is the tell. It’s not a gentle affirmation; it’s a rule issued against the rulebook. And “both” is doing the real work, refusing the binary that polices women’s behavior by rewarding one trait only when the other is minimized.
Coming from Devi, a celebrity who helped package yoga for the West, the quote also carries the unmistakable scent of mid-century respectability politics. “Femininity” isn’t just an internal feeling here; it’s a social passport. In an era when women’s public power was often tolerated only if it arrived in a palatable wrapper, insisting on femininity reads as strategy as much as identity: a way to expand women’s range without triggering the cultural alarms set to punish “unfeminine” ambition.
The subtext is pragmatic: you can be strong, but you may need to look like you’re not threatening anyone while you’re doing it. That makes the line both empowering and revealingly constrained. It champions resilience while acknowledging the surveillance women live under.
It also mirrors yoga’s own marketing arc in the West: a discipline with roots in austerity and spiritual rigor repackaged as graceful, healthful, “feminine” self-care. Devi is arguing for integration, but she’s also showing the cost of admission into mainstream visibility.
Coming from Devi, a celebrity who helped package yoga for the West, the quote also carries the unmistakable scent of mid-century respectability politics. “Femininity” isn’t just an internal feeling here; it’s a social passport. In an era when women’s public power was often tolerated only if it arrived in a palatable wrapper, insisting on femininity reads as strategy as much as identity: a way to expand women’s range without triggering the cultural alarms set to punish “unfeminine” ambition.
The subtext is pragmatic: you can be strong, but you may need to look like you’re not threatening anyone while you’re doing it. That makes the line both empowering and revealingly constrained. It champions resilience while acknowledging the surveillance women live under.
It also mirrors yoga’s own marketing arc in the West: a discipline with roots in austerity and spiritual rigor repackaged as graceful, healthful, “feminine” self-care. Devi is arguing for integration, but she’s also showing the cost of admission into mainstream visibility.
Quote Details
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