I’m every woman

My second post today about International Women’s Day and what it means to me to be female.

International Women’s Day.

I know it’s marketing bollocks.

Isn’t every day some bloody day or other these days?

But never the less, it feels a good time to celebrate my female friends, relatives, mentors and ancestors.

🔥WOMEN WHO RAISED ME

Wiped my nose and put sticking plasters on my knee.

Female teachers who cuddled me or squeezed my hand because they followed their instinct to comfort a crying child and not some bullshit protocol.

🔥WOMEN WHO PRAISED ME

Those who saw potential. Who nurtured and grew me like a tiny seedling from pot to greenhouse to the wild, wild unprotected world.

🔥WOMEN WHO AMAZED ME

Who inspired with their smiles, their tales, their trials. Their abilities to transcend poverty and abuse.

To provide for their children.

To lead.

To feed.

To succeed.

🔥WOMEN WHO SAVED ME

Those who cried with me - saw tears form in my eyes and grew them in their own as diamond ivy spreading out to reach and hold me.

To all the women I know,

The unique blessings - and challenges - that make us women will never be tainted by trendy ideology.

I feel in my core the struggles of those who came before me. The light of being a woman can not exist without the shadows that accompany it.

As Chaka Khan said “I’m every woman, it’s all in me”, and it is - the little girl, unsure adolescent, blossoming young woman, ‘arrived’ mother.

I will not allow the near menopausal storm I am right now to be used as damaging label against me so I am coerced into taking drugs or made to feel anything other than the powerful brick house force that I am.

Instead I will rock boats with its rage, cook up ideas with its heat and channel the emotion it brings into rivers to help my fellow sisters swim.

I do not fear the crone that awaits me. I welcome the wisdom she will bring. The peace I can find in silver skin and bright blue veins.

And I do not fear men.

And I will stand up against every attempt to steal what is mine.

Language that defines me.

Rights that protect me.

My womanhood

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