Women are often described as beautiful, graceful, kind, and warm. However, all of these words are soft and they don’t acknowledge the strength of a woman, both physically and mentally. They don’t touch on the resilience that a woman has, and the constant war she’s battling. They don’t acknowledge the silent tears that each girl has cried over her imperfect image, or her daily thoughts screaming, “YOU’RE NOT ENOUGH”. They don’t show the shattered confidence that is felt when women hear, “he’ll always be paid more, that’s just how it is”.
Being a woman is not soft, nor gentle. Being a woman is exhausting, restless, and overwhelming. A woman is the definition of fight. Determination. A woman is continuously forced to look like this, act like this, talk like this, and stay in the lines. The lines represent the confinement society has constricted us to, and punishment will ensue if they’re overstepped. Society has taught women that men are better and stronger. Men are warriors. How is it that the woman’s fight has fallen on deaf ears?
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Amelia Earhart, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Sandra Day O’Connor, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Susan B. Anthony. These women define the word ‘warrior’. Blood, sweat, tears and more tears, were the daily struggles of these women and yet they continued to fight in conditions much worse than what women live in today.
So it’s time we change. A woman should not be seen as dainty, but fierce. A woman represents movement and revolution. So, let’s continue being the wave of change that acknowledges this. Let’s continue transforming society to see women not only for their beauty, but to acknowledge their strength as well.