thoughts on being a woman

‘It so happens I am tired of being a man’—as Pablo Neruda wrote. Sometimes I feel this way as a woman. I feel tired. What is it that I am tired of, of the act, the performance of the gendered identity?

This is certainly something I have struggled with for sometime. Winning in the category of ‘woman’ seems almost a male concept, in that competition is often something that men are thought to desire more. But I think I am tired of always having to win at being a woman. But winning as a woman these days isn’t just about beauty and grace, its about brains and drive, it means wanting and having it all. The problem here, as with any definition, is that it is so narrow that in order to make ourselves into a ‘successful’ person, we often compromise those things that are most wholly and importantly ours.

An example from my own life could be my hair. I have dyed my hair since I was 18, I am normally a dark, blond/light brunette, but I dyed my hair because, and quite frankly, I got more attention as a blond. But I have also had the feeling that as long as I was sacrificing myself and my hair to a false construct of what it means to be ‘beautiful’, I would never find the person who loved me for those qualities that were most independently mine. That hasn’t been as true as I had imagined, and what I think I realize now is that it isn’t about how one changes their appearance, but rather, feeling like that appearance fits with what is inside, fits with who you feel you are, rather than what others might want you to be. It’s never been the hair color, but what that public definition of blond meant, that didn’t fit. What is most interesting about that though, is that in having to prove I was smart, despite the way that I looked, made me into a much more serious person than I often wanted to be. Yet I created that need, and similarly created the reaction.

Sometimes I wonder if I had had a stronger sense of those things that are most innately important, that all of the other things would have fallen away.

I think the answer is no.

Despite the fact that the journey often seems one backwards towards the freedom we felt as children, the critical analysis is what makes us realize that less obsession, which often turns into criticism, can only be attained through a deep and forgiving understanding of one’s self. Sharon Olds’ last stanza of the poem After 37 Years My Mother Apologizes for My Childhood, seems fitting:

I could not see what my
days would be with you sorry, with
you wishing you had not done it, the
sky falling around me, its shards
glistening in my eyes, your old soft
body fallen against me in horror I
took you in my arms, I said It's all alright,
don't cry, it's all alright, the air filled with
flying glass, I hardly knew what I
said or who I would be now that I had forgiven you.
-Sharon Olds, The Gold Cell.

I think it is hard to imagine who we would be if we forgave ourselves for all we have failed at, failed to do, failed to be, and just accepted that who we are is a journey, which can never be won but only just, and in a wonderful way, survived.

- g.b. Sarah H.