On Being a Woman!

So what is a woman, I ask myself. What do women mean when when they say, “I want to feel like a Woman”. It is beyond the realm of a guy’s experience, this statement. Guys never quite in the middle of the day, feel the need to feel like a Man. So what do women mean after-all? I wanted to understand that.

As I scan the women that I know or have known, intimately and otherwise; as my mind races and sifts through the lives and feelings of my mother and daughter and friends and lovers and cousins and classmates a picture emerges. Its as if a movie is playing out.

I see my daughter making a cake for her older brother for his birthday, while she was barely kindergarden. It was a sloppy little blue cake. She knew it needed to be blue, not pink. And she knew to mix the ingredients well. The frosting was a bit extra sweet but she liked it that way. She was gonna eat some too, wasn’t she. Oh! isn’t that nice. Look what a nice job you did, everyone said as she basked in the glory of compliments. Even her brother thanked her and said he liked the frosting the most. She smiled while licking some off of her own little finger, that she had stolen even before the cake was cut. She is a nurturer. Girls are so nurturing everyone said. And so she nurtured, till her joy became a duty. 

And then the little girl grew up nurturing everyone in sight until nature force-fed her its own design. She had a baby and then two. Nurturing away she was, these two and all the others that had lined up along the way, her husband and in-laws and so on. Oh they loved her so, but she needed to make dinner most days. Her husband was very kind and helped with dishes too, but he had a job. But wait, she too had a job… wo wo wo.. wait a second…what happened there…?

Well you see, along the way as she completed her homework in time and could get just as good a grade as any other kid, they were so proud of her. And she basked in in adoring and admiring attention of her parents and teachers. Girls you know, they like to feel special. And they all made her feel so special. She is smart, they said. She should become a Doctor, a Scientist they exclaimed. She loved the adulation and the self respect that came from performing quality work, playing with the big boys and girls and the self actualization that comes with that. So she trained and persevered and found her place, in the big bad corporate world. Same 8-10 hours of work as everyone else. It was exhausting. It was exhausting especially on top of all the nurturing that never fell away. Kids were growing up you see. They had to be taken care of. And the house too. You know how it is. One giant pot of stew that needs constant stirring.

And so she went about, short on sleep sometime, a bit harried, but she was fulfilling her wifely and motherly and jobly and sisterly and daughter-in -law-ly, neighborly duties. She could handle it.. She was a great multi-tasker, everyone said. And she agreed. An exhausted multi-tasker may be. But a great one she quipped, half smiling - half tired. 

And then came some of life’s adversities. She was hurt by her friend. And she had to hold it together. What else could she do. Her near and dear ones passed away, and she held it together. Her marriage got on the rocks and she remained steadfast. She had kid situation as happens with growing kids, so she kept going. She had the support of friends and family, no doubt, but she was the lynchpin amongst it all. So they said she was “Strong”. And this way she now wore the mantle of a “Strong Woman” with pride. It was her third mantle, after the “Nurturer” and “Smart” mantle. But it was also the third chain on her ankle that she will never be able to breakout of. In reality she was an exhausted, overworked, sleep deprived shell of her happy go lucky, bubbly, teenage self. But she needed to be all three. Nurturer, Provider and now Strong. 

And so she took on more stuff to validate her “strong”. It only makes sense. Some take to the gym, some run Marathons, some take more responsible jobs and so on. She did a bit of all three. And she was admired and respected for what she could do. How much she could take on and deliver. But the prior two mantles and duties never fell away. She now had some more to deal with. She was mostly happy but exhausted doing it all. And she could. Just as good as anyone else. Until one day, when she looked in the mirror and found three masks staring back at her. All the three avatars she had so willingly taken had become masks she wore, chains around her ankles. Where was she herself, she asked? The woman that she was.. where did she go? She knew she was in there somewhere. lurking around. Waiting for a respite. Waiting for a breather. To emerge. To be. To be not this or that. Just be. A coffee cup in one hand and a book in another for the whole afternoon. A walk downtown with no particular place to go and no scheduled time to come back. That’s what she wanted for herself. Just for a few hours, to feel herself once again, beyond these avatars. 

And yes, an evening when she is held close and cherished for whatever she is or isn’t, that will help too. She needed to release any and all tension in her limbs and heart and frazzled psyche. Just for a little bit. Being cherished, just for a little tiny speck of time such as an evening, was the nurturing, even the Nurturer needed. 

Perhaps, that’s what she means when she says she wants to feel like a woman. May be all she is saying that wants to feel herself, her limbs, her mind and heart - her being; beyond the masks she wears day in and day out. 

May be she just wants to be seen and heard as a person, not just a role. 

But what do I know really. I am a man after-all.