“The feminists are really masculine Women who wants to be masculine. Woman who resent being women. Women who want to be men. If you will look closely at them, the result of their pursuit is misery.”
Now if you know anything about you, you know what my reaction was to the above statement. It amazes me when people, you don’t know what feminism is about and have no interest in finding out, want to talk about how feminists are just a bunch of women who hate men so much they want to be just like them. All the LOL’s
Allow me to use these few lines to say, feminism is about gender equality. It is about saying that if she does the same job as you, she should be paid the same amount as you; she is not saying she wants to be like you, a man (that’s an example for the kids at the back). Rebecca West famously said, “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.”
But I’m not here to talk about feminism, well not directly; I’m here to talk about womanhood. A few days ago, a good friend of mine shared a link on her Facebook that intrigued me. The author was talking about women’s ministry in the church and how she wants change in how it is conducted because life is not all about baking cookies and making sure you get the right stich in pants. (I will write about this in detail at another time)
She asks an important question though when she says, “is womanhood only about wifehood and motherhood?” This struck a cord with me because I cannot tell you the number of time my womanhood has been defined by these labels.
The starting points to these labels have to do with how, as women, our womanhood is defined by our appearances. We have a hard time defining the state or time of being a woman because the most common visuals of women in our media and pop culture focus on bodies, big, bouncy breasts and butts. Or caricatures of "traditional" women's roles, such as women devoid of any sexuality (the stressed out housewife in "mom jeans,") or completely consumed by sex. Either way, we are always working so hard to keep up with these definitions or disproving them that it’s exhausting.
I spend so much time speaking on looks because we have been told that we need to look a certain way, then we are women, then we are wifey material. We spend so much of our time looking in the mirror because we have been “othered” and therefore we do not fit the mould.
Our womanhood always comes down to the physical. It’s either you are too skinny and are therefore not a real woman, or you are so big that you will not get “chose”. A large part of me as a woman has been reduced to my body parts and if they are acceptable. I cannot tell you the number of times I have heard women talk down to themselves and their bodies because they feel they are undesirable and will not get married and have children and therefore it calls their womanhood into question.
So work goes into making sure you are pleasing enough to be selected, bending and breaking into what you are expected to look like and function. Its why a lot of woman spend so much time comparing and viewing each other as competition because we have created scales within ourselves to say if she looks like this or like that, then she is a woman.
The second biggest label after our looks is the ability to have children. Let me just say that, if you, as a woman, choose to not have children, you will be labelled as a lessor woman, some will even go as far as to say you are selfish. People will however engage to the level of woman who cannot have children because of cancer or other “complications”, but she will still be viewed as lessor.
But a woman has to be more than her most observable body parts or that which makes her physically able to be a mother, right? Because without breasts or a child on my hips, I will no longer been seen a woman? I have heard the whispers when people find out how old I am have no children, it’s always shock and statements like “what are you waiting for?” and my personal favourite “a man won’t marry you if he sees you can’t have children”
So I guess this is my question, what does it mean to be a woman? What is womanhood? As all women do, I know women who have no children of their own but are extraordinary caregivers and in some cases, are far more naturally maternal than I; I know women more overtly sexual than I; women with bigger breasts than I; is womanhood measured in degrees? Are there some women who are "more woman" than others?
To me, this is what womanhood means. I’m a Christian, so that forms the basis of my reasoning and theories. To reduce me, to my physical and biological features, does not give me a God that is big enough, strong enough, wise enough, and good enough to handle the realities of life in a way that magnifies the infinite worth of Jesus Christ.
This means that if you try to reduce womanhood to physical features and biological functions, and then determine your role in the world merely on the basis of competencies, you don’t just miss the point of womanhood, you diminish the glory of Christ in your own life. My womanhood is defined by all that God has placed within me, and my responsibility is to ensure that everything I do is to glorify Him.
It is beneath me and you to just think of yourself as “parts”. God is too great. Christ is too glorious. Womanhood is too strategic. Don’t waste it.
- Written by Malebo Moloto
- #TLOTB Feature Writer
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