one thing i love about helly in severance is that she really drives home how gender conformity is learned, not innate. like she's dressed as a professional woman, in heels and a skirt and makeup, but her voice and body language, all the little ways people perform gender, don't match it. she doesn't modulate her voice higher or modify her speech to be less blunt. she's got her shoulders up in a very tense, afraid posture (bc she IS tense and afraid) and she walks with a very purposeful stride. helly is helena without the years of training to be quiet and compliant, without years of being taught how to perform gender, so she just...speaks in her regular voice. has the posture of a scared little animal because that's what she is. it's gender non-conforming but it's not masculine or anything to do with her personal gender identity. she's just being a person, having realistic human reactions to the situation she's in. and so much of gender non-conformity for women is like this. you don't have to deliberately wear menswear to be seen as unfeminine. you can just not wear makeup or not shave your legs, just exist in your unmodified body and speak with your unmodified voice, and that's enough. i sometimes see art of helly in more masc clothing or trying on mark's suit and it's cute but i think reading her lack of "appropriate femininity" as a desire to present masculine kinda misses the key point that she is not acting like a man or a woman. she is simply existing as a human being
