Biblical femininity is not dresses, pink, tea parties or kitchen work. While biblical femininity influences our behaviors or appearance it in and of itself is not an action or a fashion statement. It is a character quality, part of our inner self. Some of godly femininity is in the innate differences between the genders. While other aspects of it are chosen character qualities.

Women are created to be nurturers, wanting to help others, tender/compassionate, givers of self. Which is why nurses, teachers and social workers tend to be women. We also crave stability, safety, and understanding. Woman's movements in history have focused on creating safety(temperance), building up culture(school for all), or fighting abuses(abolition). Yes men join in and fight too but woman have been the front runners, some of the most vocal writers, the heart and voices of these movements. 

Scripture lays out some very unpopular and difficult character qualities for godly wives. There are of course qualities that all believers should endeavor to have but wives are given specific ones. 

A Woman's Strength is Counter Cultural

Popular culture says that girls and women are only strong when they act like males. Christian culture for the most part isn't much different. It is rather unsettling to discover that a woman's true strength comes from her dependence, her weakness and her non brash, non bold, spirit. 1 Peter 3 lays out some pretty crazy looking behaviors and character qualities for ladies. It lays out unpretentious talk and example, your inner person(your new nature in Christ), as well as a meek and quite spirit.
Now for a quick vocabulary lesson for some of those old terms I just used. Unpretentious means unassuming, simple and humble. Don't worry meek does not mean weak. It actually means long-suffering, strength under control. Quite doesn't equal silent or without-a-voice. What it does mean is tranquil and calm.
Simple, humble, long-suffering, tranquil, calm, strength under control. All of those are 100% opposite of the; brash, loud mouth, fiery, can take care of myself, don't need no one else, attitudes our culture says women have to have in order to be strong, safe and world changing. This is where the counter cultural part comes in. It sounds insane to promote such archaic behavior that will only lead to being a doormat. None of those character traits and behaviors mean a woman cannot have healthy relationship boundaries. In fact a woman has the responsibility to choose a husband that she can let protect her, be fierce for her and with whom her long-suffering will not be misused.

Homemaker- Which comes first the work or the heart?

When I was a young wife all the homemaker books, blogs and articles seemed to focus heavily on your performance as a wife, mother and housekeeper. While some of those books, and types of authors, still exist they are a small subset of the culture instead of the driving force. 

In my youthful zeal that had no wisdom or experience to tried to follow their performance oriented obsession until it both fueled and crumbled under burnout in the form of Fibromyalgia. My ability to function was compounded by poor mental health that needed healing. At first I was a zombie barely functioning and barely here for anyone. Then I received a diagnosis and began to heal physically which in turn helped begin my emotional/mental healing. At one point though I had to let go the entire notion of homemaker as my career. I grieved but it also set me free. 

In healing spiritually I began to come full circle. I rediscovered some things. I am still learning but what went wrong the first time around was performance vs heart. Being a homemaker, mother and wife isn't a bit about what you do but about your emotional connection to your people. All the actions don't mean anything if you have not reached your husband's heart and your children's heart while keeping your heart intact. We are not supposed to burn the candle at both ends doing every little thing because after we are dead your clean house, bread making and craft making ability won't be remembered except in connection to the emotions and feelings you made with the people remembering you. 

Yes stuff still needs cleaned, organized, food needs made and the kids need an education. But those are not actually the goal-goals. They are side hustles that should get done as best you can with what you have. The heart connections are everything. That is what the people in my youth missed. They thought what it all looked like was the goal and the stamp that marked people's hearts. Let me tell you if you are too burned out with multiple pregnancies, babies, precise housecleaning, strict homeschool methods and "serving" God to be there for your people none of it means anything. 

Heart connections are what satan wants to steal from us. It is what our current culture has stolen from almost every family that doesn't know better. I mean look at it all. How much time do families spend apart from each other? Parents work. The kids are in daycare, preschool and school full time with after school lessons, sports and educational activities, not to mention homework and screen time. Even parent's employment tends to be more than a 40 hour week with the weekends free. Most working class jobs in our area are either lesser wages for free weekends or good wages with insane overtime. 

Life has been designed to keep people apart. Yes I said designed. Whether the design came from a spiritual source, or a more earthly one with a political goal in mind, it has happened. The quickest way to reset is to just find a way to say "No!" to anything that is not needful for a roof over your head, the bills paid, and enough education to graduate. The pressure to keeping the wheels spinning is intense. I mean your children will be homeless bums unless they do everything available and excel at it. Why do you think so much violence is happening? Video games. right? Nope the utter lack of heart connection to our family. Yes I know some family's are better off not connecting to but even then how much of crappy family dynamics came from no heart connections being made in the previous generation? Now we can't go out and fix everyone else's family hearts but we can fix our own. 

Feed Beauty of the Heart and Soul

What our eyes see and our ears hear feeds out heart and soul. Drabness, plain borningness or impersonal home décor  does nothing for the inner self. What is beauty for one soul does not pluck the heart strings of another. One soul loves pastels and classic painting reproductions while another
 adore cute little animals and bold country calico patterns. There is no one "right" way to feed you heart via your environment.
Even the financially challenged can decorate their home. Thrift shops sell art work and wall hangings. Even plain Amish homes are decorated with simply but artistic mottos done by hand and placed in frames designed to encourage and focus the heart upwards. Between small children, depression and financially lack I allowed my home to become unlovely because I felt I did not deserve it because I could not clean it the way it was supposed to be cleaned. Letting it become drab and meaningless did not help my heart at all. 
We can help our inner self by what our ears hear through music and poetry, yes poetry. I know it sounds stuffy or silly but there is some really beautiful and fun poems out there. This was discovered rather by accident. I was looking to enrich my children's home education but rediscovered my youthful dabbling's with reading and being moved by poems. Or course songs are just poems set to music. What I mean by beautiful music is not just classical music, hymns or vague instrumental stuff. Just like art what moves the soul for one may bore another. However I have found in our world of too much noise the music that soothes tends to be the stuff without lyrics, instrumental movie sound tracks ala star wars or gentler songs like hymns or folk music. But that stuff is boring and I go to sleep. Maybe that is a clear sign that your body, mind and soul need to slow down, rejuvenate and revitalize. Setting it to go during school time when other sounds tend to be distracting or at your most stressful time of day help cue the system to a better internal tempo. Yes some kinds of music make me sleepy too. But slow does not always mean sleepy. It is good for our children to also learn to appreciate less tempo, pound and sound driven music. Don't worry we still do other kinds of music. But now instead of having a narrow range of music genres we listen to all kinds of stuff.