How To Be A Woman

This year I started getting interested in what it means to be a woman. As I was reading more poetry, stories, and research about women I started to realize that I didn’t know very much about it. In my culture it is often said that womanhood starts when you first start to bleed, but often mensuration happens when we are still very young and dependent on our parents and peers. When, then does this Womanhood happen? Some say when you move out of your parent’s home, some say mid-twenties, some say when you give birth. Some cultures have big ceremonies, but for many of us in the western world this threshold goes by unnoticed and unacknowledged. Through my experiences of talking to women from around the world, the best answer I’ve come up with so far is that we choose. We choose when we are going to take responsibility for our lives, our self-care, and making our dreams a reality. I’ll leave you with this poem about womanhood that I wrote after attending a women’s workshop in Bali. This is one of many women’s stories in my upcoming book Good Enough: Poetry and Illustrations Inspired by the Vulnerable Truths of Women from Around the World.

This one is called Not That Kind of Woman

Maybe I have a hard time claiming 

I’m a woman because

I’m not 

That kind of woman.

Maybe because I don’t perfectly cycle with the moon 

Hide my sexuality at just the right time 

And wildly express it at others.

Maybe I don’t feel like a woman 

Because I was never told 

I was.

I wasn’t handed over a baton 

Of sacred sexuality and responsibility.

Maybe I don’t look like them 

Sound like them

Act like them.

I get mad when the streets are so loud I can’t be heard.

I get mad that society told me 

I wasn’t good enough at anything 

And whatever I tried to be was somehow wrong.

Too sexy

Too prude

Too skinny AND too fat

Too smart AND too naive

Too serious AND too weird

Too normal AND too out there.

All at the same time.