Day 23: Society & Womanhood
There’s something oddly contradictory about being a woman
It’s like you are a walking conundrum
Society itself is confused as to what to expect of you
Do they want you to strictly be a homemaker or an independent boss babe, or a mix of both. Or do they want submission but with a hint of defiance for the general public.
You can be all of those things if you want, but will they let you be, in peace?
Do they want you to split the bill on a date because you are clamoring for equal respect or do they want you to allow yourself to be “taken care of”
Sometimes I wonder what society wants of women
I wish it was clearer
Sometimes it’s seems like a “neither, nor” situation rather than an ‘either, or’
On one hand, there’s the clear intent to lock women up in a stereotypical box and attempt to cage them there
On the other there’s the expectations to wear multiple different hats without complaints whatsoever. Even if your head hurts, how dare you complain, “ are you not a woman, don’t you know your responsibilities’’.
Forgetting that it is possible to wear a beautiful hat and still feel a splitting headache. Forgetting that she can gracefully carry all the responsibilities accorded her, enjoy it even, yet still complain because it is heavy. The former does not negate the latter.
Because she’s human and she needs rest. She needs reprieve sometimes.
Sometimes she needs help.
Sometimes she needs compassion.
She needs space to become. To evolve and find herself.
Holding her to one single version of herself is limiting. Because society forgets that an empowered, self-aware woman is a value add rather than a negative. I think they forget because they sometimes act like they do. Like a woman is an extra addition to humankind, not an organic part of.
Society does her a disservice for connoting her femininity to equate weakness, for therein lies her strength. Her operating in her truest essence, is her operating in her truth and there’s power in that.
Society wants her to speak up for herself but not too loudly, not too passionately, not too fierce, less she’s termed disrespectful and aggressive.
Her assertiveness is mistaken for aggression, even worse if she’s a black young woman.
Her confidence, that she wears like a beautiful dress, is misconstrued for persisitent defiance.
At work of all places, they say to her, “know your place oh, you are woman”
It’s as if they do not see her, the individual. They put the gender before the person, before her capabilities and her brilliance
With time she begins to believe them
Begins to believe that maybe she is aggressive, maybe she needs to calm down
Maybe she’s sensitive afterall
Maybe she truly doesn’t know her place
Maybe she’s not worthy
Maybe her brilliance is just her being cocky
Maybe her standards are too high
And then she starts to shrink and shrivel inside
Inside her, she puts out the flames
She reduces the tone of her voice and increases the pitch, to be more gender appropriate. To be more docile, more agreeable.
I wonder if she knows that she’s putting out her light, slowly.
Or perharps she knows and have accepted it as her fate in life. Sad.
