It wasn’t until recently that I ever stopped to think about what makes me a woman. I guess I had just thought that it’s as simple as my genetic makeup. It’s just how I was born and that’s that. In light of women’s history month, I started to think about what it is to be a woman.
Women throughout history have shown incredible bravery, persistence, and diligence. Women have had to endlessly fight for a better future for themselves and all of the young women after them. Women like Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, and Jane Addams had the courage to speak up for themselves and women across the globe who didn’t have a voice before. Women have to have bravery to get through life. Women are faced with violence and discrimination every day and we learn to adapt to it while simultaneously speaking out against it.
Women have a sense of love and understanding that is utterly unique. Women have a deeper understanding of life because we make it. The world wouldn’t survive without a woman’s love. Women have showed empathy through everything. Every woman I know is so deeply forgiving, even when it seems hard to give that forgiveness. Women tend to put the needs of others before their own, even if the sacrifice is substantial.
Women are smart, on both an emotional level and an intellectual level. Maya Angelou wrote poems that moved people across the globe. Marie Curie revolutionized the study of radioactivity and discovered two elements. Ada Lovelace became known as the first computer programmer and developed algorithms that computers would use. Women have proven their place in science, politics, technology, and in the academic world. The intelligence of women has changed the course of history.
There is no one word that can define what it is to be a woman. There isn’t an adjective to describe what we are. Like most things in life, the meaning of femininity goes much deeper than most would think. It goes beyond pink dresses and flowers and bows. It has a multifaceted, complicated meaning that involved more than material things. What it means to be a woman is to have a kind of strength and persistence that is graceful yet powerful. To be a woman is to lift your sisters up instead of putting them down. To be a woman is to find beauty in all things, even if it means looking beyond the surface. Most importantly, to be a woman is to love.