Thoughts About Womanhood.
What does it mean to be a woman in a world designed to pit us against each other, to denigrate feelings and caring for others?
Disclaimer: the following thoughts and opinions spawn from my own experience as a woman in the world, the observation of the women closest to me and those I grew up around.
I am in no way here to impose my dilemmas on other people.
All of my reflections are vocalized and shared to spark new ideas, have an open discussion and compare point of views amongst open-minded people.
I am a 30 year old heterosexual (personally, I don’t think my sexual orientation is relevant but apparently it is according to public opinion so it is just fair I disclose it) woman, born and raised in Italy for most of my childhood.
I come from a country where family is at the core of existence and, as a Sicilian, even more so.
Therefore, my survey of womanhood is not to be taken as offensive law, but rather as a personal journey and query of the environment I live in.
Over the past couple of weeks I have been thinking long and hard about womanhood — its meaning, its iterations, the peculiarities that make women stand out.
Womanhood is not something I have often surveyed, it has always been a fairly obvious topic to me. I am a woman, therefore I know everything there is to know about being born with a pair of XX chromosomes.
But as the public discourse around womanhood gets more controversial and polarizing by the day, I have been feeling the need to investigate the subject introspectively.
What is womanhood, and why is it such a hot discussion? If having the organs to potentially create life is not a deal breaker, then what is?
The vomit of gender politics flooding my timeline and headlines lately are pointing to the exacerbation of the womanly condition, turning necessary medical procedures into memes and “coming out” Twitter threads, designed to induce sympathy in those who are too religious to believe in abortion (obviously, prevention of unwanted pregnancies is never mentioned because who has time to talk about sexual health when you can pontificate on what to do after the deed is done?).
At times, the discussion takes dark turns, pitting marginalized groups against each other and creating fluffy arguments that are only able to exist online.
Like the idea that men can also give birth — there’s barely any data on this phenomenon — or the fact that “mother” is an offensive term and we should instead say “birthing person” to identify an individual who has just gone through one of the most physically traumatic experience anybody can go through (it is said that the pain of giving birth compares to fracturing 20 bones simultaneously). I find this rhetoric dehumanizing and misogynistic. Why are we scared to call women for what they are: women. Why must we generalize instead?
Surely, not all women can procreate, menstruate or ovulate and it’s ominous to pool all specimens with a female physical appearance under the same category, but aren’t those exceptions to the rule and conditions caused by hormonal and chemical imbalances?
These debates often occur amongst people of the middle class and up. Groups that do not really have to worry about the consequences of disregarding science to favor emotion. They do not have to worry about making sure they have enough food to feed the children they did put on earth with the prospective of creating a stronger household.
But then again, as gender lines blur, roles revert, cultures shift, values weaken and society goes astray, how can we expect the conversation to actually be productive? To focus on the fundamental aspects of existence and tolerance, the crucial necessities of women who do not have the luxury to becoming a boss babe?
I reached the peak of my introspection on the question for womanhood as I wrote a message to my newly born niece and I placed it inside a book I bought her for future reference.
In the note, I discussed my relationship to her mother — my sister — and the dynamic between the two of us, first as children then as teenagers. As the younger sibling, I urged her not to assume the role of parent if and when her originators decided to have another child.
I told her to respect her mother, to be resilient, to be kind and generous. I signed off saying I will always be there for her, to support her through the hard times and when she will feel like nobody can understand her problems. We have all been there.
By imprinting this advice on paper, I triggered memories from my childhood. I started recalling the events that led me where I am today, the moments that shaped me and most of all, my relationship to my own mother.
Her kindness, her immensely caring personality; all of those tender traits that are intrinsic to her behavior and are commonly attributed to women.
I grew up in what was once considered a traditional family — I say once, because the family structure has been increasingly evolving in ways that I have lost track of — a father, a mother and two children (we became more of an enlarged family at a later stage but that’s a story for another time).
After my parents got married, my dad became the sole bread winner and my mother dedicated herself to the household. She went from being an interpreter and model to becoming a housewife, and while that may sounds like a downgrade to many —or a predicament that made her a victim— she excelled at her new job.
Frankly, it would have been quite impossible for her to build a career as my father’s job was demanding and his rebellious vein forced us to move every year; the internet was yet to become a thing and remote work was an invention of the future.
This situation awarded my sister and I the luxury to spend most (actually, all) of our childhood in the direct care of our mother — this was the biggest privilege. Something I will forever be grateful to have experienced, and hope to be able to gift my children, if I will have any.
I never had to attend kindergarten nor had to have a nanny; from birth to elementary school, my days were filled with mom-daughter activities and fun learning exercises mostly targeted towards nurturing my creativity and becoming a well-mannered adult.
These foundational years — spent in such proximity to my mother — forged my interests, sense of style and talent for putting random ingredients together without blowing up the kitchen (my mom is a master of this last discipline).
Often times, my sister, mom and I would sleep together in my parents’ king size bed, laughing and joking until one of us started to snore. Most times it was me who drifted off first.
The following morning, we’d get up and start it all over again.
At some point my sibling began school, so after dropping her off and for the next 5 years until my turn came, it was just me and my mother spending time alone, watching Disney movies, drawing, practicing the alphabet or how to write in cursive. It was grand.
I have very feeble memories of those times, most have faded away, overridden by more recent events, but thankfully my parents avidly documented everything.
There is plenty of footage capturing our morning shenanigans at our new home, my mother holding her beloved camcorder in front of the mirror, talking to me, telling me to sing, to express myself. She did the same with my sister.
All of these cassettes are neatly marked and stored in a safe place, no matter how many times we relocated; so whenever I visit my parents’ home, we run a marathon of these short films and collectively reminisce those good times, always making sure a Kleenex box is at hand reach.
My mother was — and still is — a fairly stereotypical Italian mom, the kind to shop for food daily and prepare a different dish at every meal, joyfully feeding us.
She never commanded me to make my bed, she just did it; but while doing so, she educated me to take care of my belongings and slowly, as I grew into my teens, I began to make my bed without ever having to be directed to do so.
By being so close to her in the most formative years in my life, I learned how to experiment in the kitchen, how to do laundry and keep things neat and clean by osmosis.
My mother — her name is Antonella — is one of the most caring individuals I know, loving and naive, grounded and nurturing. My childhood friends loved her; those who remained in my network well into adulthood, come visit me to see her.
She was always the right amount of strict, teaching me how to be independent while lending a hand when needed. I was extremely lucky to be born her daughter and to have the privilege of spending so much time next to her. Her style, curiosity and love for the arts are the most valuable inheritance.
My mom was the type to make us tag along my father’s business trips to places like Paris and Rome, simply to show us the beauty of those places. To teach us about the wonders of the world, to take us on cultural treks around these cities and encourage us not to give up when our feet got too tired.
When I look at my mother now, still perfectly put together and well dressed, hair done and always ready to take care of the people around her, I dream of being half the woman that she is — resilient, feminine and pure.
But what does it mean to be a woman? This question rings in my ears over and over, yet I can’t seem to find an appropriate answer.
Is it the the inherent biologic characteristics that come with being born with female genetics? Is it the soft shape of our hips and breasts? Or the tendency to choose certain jobs and the way we interact with the world? If in the contemporary public discourse none of these things matter, what sets us aside?
For a long time, I saw my mother’s decision to forgo her career to be a home-maker as a burden — a critical yet essential choice dictated by my father’s professional life rather than her own deliberation.
As a result, I lived my youth in the total opposite way, with the aim to claim my space in the world by going against the grain — or “smashing the glass ceiling” so to say.
However, not too long ago, I began inspecting my ideals.
Call it coming of age, growing older or just being tired of constantly battling with a perennial identity crisis, my perspective on the topic had a shift.
And I was left with even more questions about the condition of women in society and consequently the quintessential womanly gift of motherhood.
Why is it that, no matter what a woman chooses to do with her life, whether it’s pursuing a career as a housewife or CEO, her free will is constantly scrutinized and appealed?
And if a woman chooses to have children and a family, why are we wired to think she must be oppressed and marginalized when having the ability to raise a person well in a world full of insanity is the most important job anybody can take on?
What does being a woman mean in a world where our wombs are used as political grounds? Our inherent differences from men are disregarded and erased in the fight for equality, instead of studied to create the right tools to advance our position in the world?
What is womanhood when no matter what we choose to do with our lives is contested by our peers and we are challenged on our values or reduced to speak about ourselves in silos?
I have yet to draw a conclusion, to find the ultimate universal answer; but one thing I have come to realize is that there is not one absolute truth when it comes to defining womanhood because every individual in the world — male, female or in between — is unique. And it’s up to each one of us to decide how we move in the world, despite the labels society may try to generalize us with.