I have written a lot but it's near impossible to reach a conclusion. I can't seem to stay on topic and it all just doesn't make sense to me. This is, after all, probably the toughest question that I've encountered thus far. And I don't like this question, because it's like asking what it means to be an adult, only more specific. Throw away gender roles and conventional thoughts, and I have to admit that I don't believe in turning into adults.
Because no matter how old you get you'll always have that childlike vulnerability to you that's hidden deep within, and that inherent need for love and attention that you've trained yourself into learning to earn. You may not throw tantrums any longer, you may not open up as easily or be as simple a person, but in there somewhere where everyone's softest and squishiest, warmest place is there'll always be a little area that remains unchanged.
So then if it isn't growing up or being specifically and politically-correct female 'woman-ness', what exactly is it?
I find myself spinning in circles when I do this because none of it makes sense.
I did skirt around the question several times but when I tried getting into it, there wasn't anything to be said.
The concept of being a woman is, as we all know, different in different places.
You could yank out desirable traits of care and concern, loving support, great housework and a meek personality; tie them all up with a raffia string and smack it into people's faces saying, there's a woman for you. You could take the western approach and stick independence and strength together. Throw in some capability of being refined, elegant, feminine and intelligent, and you've got the whole package.
The thing is that I don't get this question. I could just go the easy way out and start describing mature ovaries and Fallopian tubes, but that's kinda boring. Or, someone here could just bring up the point of being good in bed.
The thing is that I don't get the answer.
It's not that you don't have your own train of thought, it's that we're both trying to break out of that traditional shell and welcoming western ideals, and what happens is a resulting mixture that is supposedly ideal and correct, something that contradicts itself and sounds like this unattainable hurdle.
It is, in fact, confusing to me. I love complex things, but this is all so interconnected and grimy that it's hard to see through the slab of concrete that's supposedly opaque but that is transparent to you.
And I don't quite believe in it even if it were possible to be all of those as aforementioned.
We are told that a woman means so many things but the truth is that all of us have different combinations of these conditions. And lacking many of them or having all of them doesn't mean that you are or aren't a woman.
...Do I have to be all of that?
If I'm not interested in kids, only sex, if I'm not interested in marriage, only passion, if I usually play the supporting role in relationships, come off too strong to most people in group discussions and still be somewhat quiet and reliant around this one human because the sight of him makes me freeze up.. What am I?
People are multifaceted, and we can't all be a certain way so that we're befitting of our age range, or gender. Maturity, yes, and the independence that comes with it, but nothing else beyond that should be a form of measurement of meaning.
A woman or a man to me has always just been this neutral word choice that means growth. Being a man shouldn't just mean protecting someone and becoming responsible and masculine. A woman shouldn't just mean being loving, gentle and strong either. You're an adult--- nothing more, nothing less. There is nothing more that we should be expected to become, nothing so defined and restricted that we should be. If being a woman means femininity and all socialised conditions, I'd rather not be one- not that I can help it. And adults have to be independent and mature because they're expected to be, but I've always thought that it's alright for adults to step down from the pedestal they're made to stand upon, to rely upon someone every once in a while, and to not be whatever it is that they should be.
Why do we have to become pillars when we grow up; when we were all just buckets of liquid concrete to begin with, and we never dry up completely?
And here I shall quote from a book because that's what you do when you're trying to support your point without good elaboration.
"Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. Truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.”
The thing is, if we all remain vulnerable and the same inside, and that all of it is packaging and armour, what difference does it make that we're now labelled men and women instead of awkward teenagers?
I can be a variety of things, but I can never be the type of woman that justifies the definition of the very word.
What does it mean to me?
It means being an adult, but they don't exist.
And so it means nothing, nothing at all.
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