Womanhood

Growing up, from the time I was about 5 years old, I had 2 mom's. My mom, and my step mom, were the main examples I had of what it meant to be a woman. 

My step-mom was loud, boisterous, and masculine. She had short hair, a loud voice, and a taste for beer rivaled by nobody I've known since. She was kind hearted in many ways, in small moments, but cruel and abrasive in others. She didn't take shit from anyone. 

My mom was also not the most traditionally feminine woman. She worked hard outside the home. She was not a great house keeper, at all, and while an excellent cook, she left most of the managing of the household amd cooking of meals to my step-mom.

She was a great mom, she supported my dreams, mostly, and tried her best to encourage my eccentricities and passions.

But I came into adulthood having images of women in the media, metal music stars, and my equally struggling friends as the examples on which I built my identity as a woman. I struggled a lot of come to terms with my gender and sexuality. I dated boys and girls in high-school, growing dreadlocks, cutting my hair short, even shaving it off into a Mohawk at one point. I wanted to be a rock star, or a humanitarian, or both. I wore no bra under small t-shirts, and wrapped myself in tattered blue jeans, chains hanging from my belt loops. 

After struggling in my early teens, I fell in with a religious family who opened me up to faith in a higher power. It was a challenge to adapt to their way of life. If their views were to be believed, I was a sinner for wanting to be intimate with women, and it was something unforgivable. My emotional traumas, they told me, which manifested as outbursts of anger and sadness, and fits of hyper-focused mania, were symptoms of demon possession. 

They prayed over me, and shakingly, I felt the demon leave me as I was brought into the warm embrace of a truly loving community. 

But it didnt last. It didn't sit right with me. Small moments started to chip away at my love for them. It first started when they claimed I loved, even lusted, after their son, and didn't stop until I "admitted" the lie. And then I was not to be alone with the boys anymore. Not to be trusted, I suppose. Women wield witchy sexual powers over young boys, I guess. Their blind faith coupled with their insistence that scientific evidence could be gathered to prove all that transpired in the Bible, and ultimately the existence of a creator flustered me. And finally, their insistance that I beg for forgiveness for the sin of loving a woman, pushed me away. 

So, by way of learning to embrace my womanhood, the Christian church was not much help. I learned from them to hate parts of myself that I had never thought were sinful before. 

Between going to university, pursuing my MA and falling in with a group of loud, boisterous, and passionate feminists at a trendy vegan spot run, I started to see womanhood as an image, a performance, not an inherent identity. You cannot define a woman! Womanhood looks different for everyone! Womanhood is defined by the individual, not by society constructs! Most importantly, to be a woman is to NOT be a man. Especially a white man. And more, it was no long the Power of the Pussy, because that was no longer the thing that bound the gender together. Rather, the way identity was performed and claimed became the determining factor for who belonged and who didn't. 

And I loved it. I felt free. But my respect for my husband diminished, and my respect for my male friends and colleagues diminished as well. Men were the culprits, after all. "Men are Trash" shouted my friends, and while I never shouted it alongside them, I definitely didn't argue the contrary. I validated every hateful word. There was even a moment where my best friend shouted that a white woman (who didn't want a specific type of cake and wanted to change her order, or something else simple but presumably irritating,) was a dirty c#$t, then in the next breath said that men are pigs in response to something said by a coworker - and I backed her up. You have the right to say that, I thought. The right to think that. 

I supported every prejudiced opinion. I was finally part of a crowd of people who all wanted the same thing. Justice! Equality! 

But I started to notice... I wasn't invited to the parties. The only time I got attenetion from my friends was when I complained about my husband. In those moments they were my biggest fans! "You can do anything," they told me. "You don't need him!" "Men are Trash!"

And after a long hard struggle to get my family back on track, I was no longer worthy of attention. I moved away and my best friends didn't send me messages, nobody called. I tried to stay in touch for while, until it became evident I was a lot more invested in the friendships than they were. The group of women who were my daughter's aunties, never called or sent cards for her birthday. And I realized, far too late, that my gal pals, my "girls", my ride or die women, were not real. And my relationship to my womanhood as an extension of the identity that was wrapped up in those friendships was also not real. 

With that group of friends gone, I also began to question the beliefs and values I had supported - and cracks began to form in our calls for justice. Was it justice, we wanted? Equality? Or were we actually quite hateful? The latter increasingly appeared to be true. Kind people do not spout hateful words about those they disagree with. And ostrisization and bullying stopped looking like justice to me. You cannot fight hate with hate...that is a deep truth I had long forgotten. 

So what do I have left? What does it mean to be a woman in contemporary society? Can I claim to be a woman? Can I claim my womanhood is inherent and tied to my biology, my body? Is my sex and my gender anything sacred, or is it just a performance, a social construct, a invention of culture, or worse, a costume? 

I am coming to know myself, my womanhood, my body, as a sacred reflection. Existing in a beautiful binary with masculinity. 

I am learning to embrace certain aspects of my femininity that I never let flourish. And it is HARD! I don't know how to balance my desire for freedom with my desire to be a supporting character in the lives of my child and husband. I don't know how to have goals for myself while supporting my husband's goals as well. I am learning, and struggling, to be submissive and strong at the same time. 

But I am finally coming into myself, following my conscience and my internal compass, and I am finally learning (slowly) to love my feminine self.

Until another day,

Johanna