According to Wikipedia, women in New Zealand are unfeminine, wear masculine clothing and spend ''little time on makeup and personal grooming''.

Picture the film cliche – a woman gets up in the morning, her hair's a mess and she's padding around in a man's shirt. Masculine clothing? Check. Spending little time on personal grooming? Check. Unfeminine? Well, it's a film and she was probably in makeup for a few hours, but the general idea is there.

So is it really personal grooming and clothes that define us as feminine, or is there more to it?

I surveyed a range of people around the country asking them to score NZ women between 1 (unfeminine) and 10 (very feminine). Women gave themselves a middle-of-the-road average of 5.3, while the men's average was a more generous 7.3. Most people think femininity is about how women dress. On further questioning, many concede it's also about how women carry themselves, and the way we act.

Celeste Wills runs My Farm Lady, designing and selling feminine work gear. She's convinced many rural women would like to wear more feminine clothes but are afraid of the reactions of others. Is it dressing in a more feminine manner we're afraid of, or a more deep-rooted fear of our femininity? Asked whether they thought femininity was strong or weak, again we women were down on ourselves scoring a 5.1 average, while men appreciated our inner girl more with a 6.5.

It's disturbing that women regard their femininity as a weakness. Samala Robinson runs New Zealand's leading school for makeup artists. She reflected that in addition to presentation, "there's a whole range of attributes associated with femininity – compassion, tolerance and sensitivity". Surely these attributes give women strength.

ForbesWoman's 2010 list of top female role models includes women who are not only staunch, successful and driven, but who have compassion and empathy too. The list includes activist Ali Hewson, and JK Rowling – a single mother success story. In New Zealand women like Suzanne Paul, like her or not, are strong, resourceful, honest, have great integrity – and you can't deny their femininity.

Lyla Dunn, 80, of the Greymouth Women's Institute said, "Women need to stand up for their own sex and let people know that men are not the top dog," suggesting that, by trying to be "blokey", women give the message that being male is better. It also undermines and devalues core attributes of femininity, vital for the men in our society too.

If appreciation begins by putting on a dress, or wearing heels, so be it. But we can be in touch with our femininity in jeans and a T-shirt or work boots and a Swanndri too.

Philip Russ, 50, who owns and runs Blackball Salami, says femininity "comes more from the inside. I saw a woman on a logging crew the other day, and she was very feminine". Although there is a sense that femininity is about more than appearance, people aren't quite sure what that means. We seem to a have a good sense of what being a "bloke" means but are adrift on what it means to be a woman.

Those surveyed gave the overall impression of being uncomfortable with femininity, feeling it was all about "being girly". International opinion veers strongly toward regarding femininity as a deeper, broader subject, encompassing our core values as women and what we bring to society. If we are uncomfortable with those values and avoid them by adopting male attributes – does that make us strong? The women who won us the vote wore long dresses, they "fixed" their hair, they didn't knock back the beers and swagger about in a manly fashion. Were they strong? You bet. The key seems to be understanding and recognising what femininity is, and claiming it. Gay men reclaimed the word "gay". It's time for women to reclaim the word "feminine".

Naomi Madelin is a freelance writer.