The War on Women: Why Womanhood is Sacred and Exclusive.
What is a Woman? Why is Womanhood sacred?
Wom·an - an adult female human being.
Sacred, considered to be worthy of respect or devotion, inspires awe or reverence. Things are often considered sacred when they are unique and extraordinary, what could be more extraordinary than the ability to create life and nurture it with our own bodies. What's more unique to women than menstruation, ovulation, nurturing, birthing, breastfeeding?
What is more extraordinary than being a mother, a grandmother, a sister, a wife, and a daughter.
These roles and experiences are beautiful, unique, and sacred, worthy of our utmost respect and admiration.
The Unique Experience of Women
When I was a young girl, I remember the shock of my first cycle. There I was unsure of why I was bleeding and unsure of what was happening to me. I told my mother what was happening and she comforted me and assured me that all was normal. But I could see the grief in her own eyes, shocked that her little girl was growing up and becoming a woman.
Now as a grown woman, I realize how sacred that passage was. A distinct moment in time that I can trace back to the beginning stages of womanhood. Many Years later I lost my virginity, and was heartbroken. Not heartbroken over him… No, I was heartbroken that my virginity, my innocence had been taken. An experience so many young girls and women can relate too. The second my family realized I was having sex they pushed me to get on birth control. So I was brought to the doctor and given very little information on the effects of Hormonal birth control and was given an IUD. Which was an uncomfortable experience to say the least. Letting some stranger use cold, sterile tools to place a foreign object inside of your womb, an experience only another woman could understand. I used the 3 IUDs for 10 long years with limited understanding of what it was doing to my hormones, my fertility, my weight and my mental health.
Yearning for motherhood
Years into my relationship, I wanted a child. So, excited and slightly scared, I got my IUD taken out hoping to get pregnant. I was told I should be able to get pregnant right away. Well, two long years later and lots of crying i finally concieved. I’ve learned since getting off birth control how my body has been greatly affected by the use of hormonal contraceptives. The first month after getting off birth control was an emotional roller coaster. At first I felt fine, then I experienced anxiety, heavy fatigue and a lot of crying. But slowly my body started to heal, months later my cycle became regular. After a whole year my cycle synced with the moon, and now 2-3 days before the moon is full my cycle comes and stays until the full moon passes.
I prayed daily to become pregnant, longing for the experience that I was born for. Growing my own child inside my womb. Birthing my baby and holding my child in my arms. Having my cycle pass every month yet with no child was a painful experience that only another woman can understand.
Growing my daughter in my belly, feeling her kick, having fear that I could lose her. Preparing for birth and finally bringing her into the world. Then having that beautiful little girl plopped on my chest as she searched out my breast. I remember the overwhelming joy I felt looking in her eyes. Another experience only a woman can understand.
Womanhood is exclusive
Womanhood is a unique experience, one that can’t be imitated through surgeries, cross sex hormones, or any other surface level change. My experience as a woman goes deep down into my bones and my soul, every experience I have is that of a woman. Womanhood is the essence of my innermost being. From getting my period as a little girl; to growing into my womanly body; to struggling to get pregnant, regulating and healing my cycle, to growing life inside of me and bringing her into this world and nourishing her with my own body. NO ONE other than another woman can share in this experience. Womanhood is inherently exclusive.
The War against Women
A woman isn't just a person with a uterus or ovaries, or XX chromosomes. We as women ALL have those, but we are SO much more than those things. Being a woman color’s every experience in our lives, and we embody the feminine daily without having to try. Even without makeup, without dresses, without having to take hormones. We just are. We are women, and there is a war brewing against us. An effort to shut us up and push us out. We are told that we should be silent and tolerate men in our spaces, our bathrooms, our sports, into our changing rooms and college dorms. But people who espouse this have put aside women’s safety and the sacredness of womanhood in exchange for a lie.
The belief and ideology that claims that men can become women and vice versa is nothing but a pervasive lie that has corrupted the minds of some people within broken society.
They have disregarded the sacredness of womanhood. To these people, anyone can choose to become a woman, a man can wake up one day and say that he is one, and we are supposed to acquiesce. But I will never acquiesce to an ideology that is untrue. Woman is a category that you can only be born into. You can't transition your way into the sacred experience of womanhood. No matter how hard you try.
Men Cannot Become Women
Womanhood is not your hormone levels, or cosmetic surgeries and it isn't based on your self perception. It’s not your likes or dislikes, or some feminine stereotype. Real women do not always share in those characteristics, we don't always wear makeup, we dress however we want, and our hormones can go up and down. But what we do share is SO much more sacred than any of those arbitrary things. Women have the unique ability to create life and nurture it with our own bodies. Even women like me who have struggled to get pregnant, share the innate experience of Womanhood. We are the only ones who experience the sacred passages of womanhood. From our first bleed to our last birth. From birthing our babies to struggling to get pregnant. From breastfeeding to ovarian cancer. Every bit our being, from our womb to our breasts, to every fiber of our bones & even our memories are that of a woman.
No label can change that, no hormone can change that, and no pronoun can change that. We are the only ones who share the sacred passage from maiden to mother, from mother to wise woman. We are the only ones who bear down to birth our babies, or are cut open to bring our babies into this world. We are the only ones who cry out in the night praying to get pregnant after yet another negative pregnancy test. We are the only ones who nourish our babies with our bodies.
We are mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, and daughters and we cannot be replaced.
