What it means to me to be a woman

I listened to a podcast this morning that really triggered me. It was all about gender and when I dug deeper into why it triggered me so much, I began to think about what it means to me to be a woman. I have thought about this a lot over the years. My mother passed away when I was nine, and I don’t have any memories of her, nor of life with her. Subsequent to that, I was raised by my father, and hats off to him for raising three girls - these days I feel like he did a damn good job. During that time, and for most of my twenties, I worried that I might not successfully be able to be a “good woman” without having that influence. But on the flip side, being raised by a man, I also had so many questions about so-called gender roles even as a teenager. When I left home at nineteen, I had the ability to cook and do most of the other household duties that were often ascribed to women (and I guess in some cultures and families still are). Since  I learned many of these things from my father, I definitely was not going to marry a man who couldn’t or wouldn’t do these things. 

But over the years, especially in this day and age where there are discussions around “gender fluidity” I think about what being a woman has meant to me. I have always hated dresses and skirts and any shoes that weren’t sneakers or slippers (and still do) although every now and again I will concede to wearing them. I equally am not a fan of wearing makeup, and that I wear even less often. I used to worry that these preferences would impact whether or not I was able to be a “good woman” but these days, I am less worried about those things. I used to hate my deeper voice, and the fact that I was an alto at best and maybe even a tenor on a bad day, but I eventually learned to embrace that too. 

In fact if I am honest, I begrudged being a woman when I was in my teens and twenties, and sometimes it made me downright angry. The experience to me was one where I felt that “femininity” and being feminine was defined more by what was on the outside than on the inside. About how I had to sit with my legs closed, or maybe even crossed (especially while wearing that damned dress of a school uniform for 12 years). About how I walked, and how I needed to learn to walk properly, because I would have to wear heels to my graduation and the last thing I wanted to do was end up on my ass in the school courtyard in my white dress. About how to wait for guys to ask you out and get their attention by batting my eyelids, dropping a white handkerchief, and making them feel needed. 

It felt to me like being a woman was about being stared at but never being seen. About beauty over substance. It was being careful when I walked at night, and not dressing provocatively in case a man was tempted to rape me. It was learning to live with the irony that many of the very things which actually made me a woman, this so-called desirable creature, were the things that were also shameful and needed to be kept secret. That “time of the month” where I would spend days in agony, and bleeding, while pretending to be a functioning member of society, and not losing an ounce of productivity. It was about the inconvenience of having large breasts while training to run a half marathon (and being crippled with menstrual cramps on the day of the race that I spent over a year training for). It was learning about the truths of the injustices that women all over the world face, including in my own back yard. It was about realizing that sometimes even other women will treat men better than they treat each other. Learning that so many of us women have insecurities that lead us to struggle to accept our own beauty and diversity. Being told that I needed to have children in order to be a “real woman”.

These days, while I still think about many of these things, it is with different emotions. I am less angry, and more accepting of myself, and others. I seldom bow to the pressure of wearing the dress and the makeup (although sometimes I do, and it isn’t that bad for an hour or two). I have learned to see the beauty in the diversity, and to even embrace some of the things about myself that annoyed me as a teenager. I have started to see femininity as being extremely substantive, and come to a deeper understanding of myself, and I have found those who see me, and sometimes I think that is the thing that makes the biggest difference of all. Sometimes I think that as women living in a world that in so many cases was designed for men, we fear truly be seen, because this could mean being seen as weak, or less than. Having fought so long for equality, I worry sometimes that we feel like equality means doing what men do and being rewarded as such. I long for and work for the day when equity means that the things that women do (which only we can do) are valued the same as the things that men do because - women aren’t men. I wait for the day when each of us can feel seen and respected for who we really are.

And I take pleasure in being a woman (most days), knowing that it is not about clothes, or makeup, or heels (thank goodness) or about how I sit or stand. It is not about whether I am a mother or a wife or a soprano. I am a woman without any of those things, regardless of what I wear or how I sit or walk, and for me true value comes in being seen, and heard, and respected, and making a difference by doing the things and being the person that I only I can be. And in the end, I think that is all each one of us wants. 

I send you big love from a small island.