Stepping into Womanhood

Growing up everyone called me a now cringe-worthy term, tomboy. I played with G.I. Joes, hated dolls and dresses, loved sports, and never really wore much makeup. In grade school I spent many a lunch hour playing off-the-wall and milk crate (basket)ball with the guys. Like most people, my circle of friends consisted of kids who shared similar interests and opinions. My friends and I would often joke around about how annoying, sensitive and catty women were. From adolescence into the beginning of adulthood, I prided myself on being a “guy’s girl.” I loved sports, hung out with a lot of guys, drank them under the table, and often boasted about the “no strings attached” intimate relationships I had with men. Even when I finally embraced dresses, makeup and traditionally feminine things in my twenties, I still held onto the idea that I was an atypical woman and often talked to friends about the irritating habits of “most” women.

I never realized how problematic, self-loathing and ultimately, misogynistic this all was.

I also wasn’t able to see that as a little girl, I was not a socalled, tomboy. I was just a little girl who liked playing with the toys that I liked playing with and doing the things I liked to do. Other people introduced me to this gendered idea. Other people thought it strange that I liked basketball. Other people taught me that a girl should like to wear dresses. Other people taught me to reject my definition of being a woman. On top of this, 80’s and 90’s television did a pretty good job of feeding me images of women that aligned with everything I was being told so I created the idea that being a woman was a fault. After my mother died by suicide when I was 11 years old over (what I thought was) a broken-heart, it sealed the deal for me: I was definitely never going to be a “typical” sensitive, mushy, and weak woman.

I kind of assumed I’d simply outgrow this thinking with time and education. Surely, my expensive and impressive sociology undergraduate courses would undo what a tough childhood and the media had helped me create. I assumed that years of attending women empowerment events, taking personal development courses and being a member of a powerful Latin sorority was a testament to how super enlightened I was now.

Alas, degrees and affiliations prove unworthy matches to society’s impact on your psyche. Even as a liberal adult, I couldn’t really shake the ideas I’d created about being a woman.

Then I went through childbirth.

Labor was CRAZY; by far the hardest sh!t I have ever experienced… and it was also beautiful. It unleashed a fierce passion for being a woman that I had never felt in my life.

My first delivery was a planned C-section due to a placenta previa (so going into labor would have actually been life-threatening) and while giving birth to my first child was an amazing and life-changing experience, going through a vaginal birth triggered something different in me.

My attitude change began during this second pregnancy during which I read a lot about the good ol’ days when women gave birth and raised their children together. I read about circles of women that helped each other, taught each other’s children, and leaned on each other. I even read some articles that suggested that being surrounded by women during labor actually leads to less pain. (wuuut?!) I had already begun to see the importance of women in my life after having my first child and reading articles like these started to what I was only beginning to explore.

I went into labor 2 days after Christmas and 2 of my closest girlfriends dropped everything to be by my side in NYC — one from Philly and the other from Boston. My doula, another woman, was also there and the 3 of them spent the better part of 2 days massaging my back, feeding me, taking care of my oldest son, cleaning my house, buying groceries, holding my hand, making me laugh, wiping my tears, sitting by my bedside as I slept, and coaching me through the hardest pain I’d ever endured.

What happened in those few days was nothing short of magic.

I cannot quite articulate the supernatural force that was created in that small circle as we came together to welcome life. We were vessels harnessing a power that could only be conjured by us. We became everything and anything that was needed.

It brings tears to my eyes as I write this, and I wish I could do it justice here.

Childbirth with my village of women revealed a strength and special responsibility that comes with being a woman. It uncovered a secret superpower that we possess and that I’d only seen glimpses of until now.

Stepping into the all-powerful matriarch role for my family of all boys seems like an ironic full circle. As I finally embrace being a woman, it is now that I actually am a guy’s girl — 4 guys to be exact: 2 sons, 1 nephew and 1 life partner.

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It is no mystery to me why women remain so oppressed. Someone must have caught wind of the sheer power women can generate when brought together, so they put in systems to divide and diminish us instead. (I think people of color are oppressed for similar reasons but that’s for another day.) I wonder what my childhood would have been like had I embraced this long ago. What would the world look like if more women did?

l step into my womanhood NOW invigorated and empowered.

I reject the dangerous language and misogynistic culture that governed my psyche for so long and that keeps girls and women insecure, powerless, and silent.

I commit to surrounding myself with women and tapping into our source of magic.

This is my center.

I am excited to bring as many women as I can on this journey with me. l step into my womanhood NOW invigorated and empowered.

Do you remember how you first tapped into your woman superpower?

How did the world try to stop you?

If you haven’t, what holds you back?