When I was little, I believed that pushing away anything that connected me to my femininity and womanhood was the greatest act of rebellion I could enact. I wanted nothing pink and hated that my room was painted that color. I didn’t want to use makeup, despised dresses, and developed a love for soccer that I was sure would erase any trace of “girl” in me. It was a grudge I held, one that made me incapable of wanting to be anything but reckless and a rule breaker. My family, a house full of women, was painfully aware of my actions, and if the modeling classes they made me attend while I had soccer practice were of any indication, they didn’t enjoy my fight against femininity.
They wanted me to be pretty, to act right, be graceful, but I was too engrossed in my act of rebellion to care. I didn’t want to be “just that;” I wanted more; I wanted to be something else. It’s hard to be so little and understand the world differently, to try and rebel against an existence that was simply not rightfully explained, not properly defined. I didn’t want to be a woman in a world where differences were weapons, and men had it so much easier. I didn’t want to be a target or weak, and back then, I believed that stripping myself of all things “girl” would save me from that.
(Image retrieved from Pinterest)
Then I grew up, and I learned that it went farther than gendered colors and stereotypes. It was a weakness attributed to simply existing as a woman, as a girl from birth. It was feeling too much, being aware at a young age, being caring, nurturing, protective—being a woman was so entangled with these immense amounts of responsibilities that it was almost a given that from a young age you would have been different from boys. Nothing survives such pressure for years and grows apathetic to their presence. My existence as a girl was so pushed against my body and mind, that I figured that running away from it would be my best chance.
I had seen all these things as weaknesses because it was what I had seen the world portray, what I had digested from society. It took long years of growing and learning to understand that these things just are. That they’re human feelings and attributes that have simply been bestowed upon women. It was precisely what made us not weak but powerful. It was scary, in a way, to have to live up to all of these expectations that the world had decided to put on us, but it was awe-worthy to notice that, despite that, we were a force to be reckoned with.
The scary thing about being a woman exists within the pressure of society and thousands of expectations. The scary power about being a woman is being able to be more than those expectations, and proving it. We women could be kind, nurturing, aware. We could exist noticing more and in between the lines. It did not make us weak, rather it forged us like steel at a weapons master’s cave to be that and excel at whatever we set our minds to.
I had learned that putting on a dress, doing my makeup, and using a pink purse wasn’t a weakness. I didn’t have to let those things define me or let those things be used as attributes of a “weak” woman. I could do them and still be strong, still be reckless. I learned that it was as satisfying as breaking rules when I was young, to be confident in my femininity and still break through the boxes society expected that femininity would put us in.
It became scary being a woman, because those attributes the world gave us, while more often than not were true, were given to us so we’d wither in an inescapable box. To push us to the sidelines of what we could be within it. It scared me to let that define me. But, once old enough to notice the courage of all the women before me and beside me, I noticed the box wasn’t inescapable—it was not even real. It was there to make us believe that being a woman was a weakness. Perhaps in the eyes of those around us it was, but to us, to women, it became a reality to shape that box into what we wanted it to be.
(Image retrieved from Pinterest)
Escaping being the women society wanted us to be was very difficult. It was drilled into us from birth. Being a woman meant being so many things at once. It became a test of how much one was able to juggle. But there are enough powerful women out there to know that the scary power of being a woman was that we were a force to be reckoned with, that the ‘weaknesses’ gave us an advantage, one we had centuries of learning how to use in our favor.
I wouldn’t go back and change any of my behaviors. I wish I could’ve had a better environment to understand my reality, but I do not wish to go back. The process of me hating my own womanness opened the doors for me to be able to now understand the complexity of being a woman in this world. I guess that’s part of this scary power of ours. There’s guidance in getting lost.
Is it cliché? I don’t believe so. The scary power of being a woman should be written in pink and bold letters. It does not make us less. It makes us powerful. It seems like such a cliché, an easy concept to grasp, but there’s a reason why movies like Barbie touch deep parts of us while some believe they’re basic representations of feminism and femininity. These things are not basic. They are fundamental and worth being reminded of.
(Image retrieved from Pinterest)