I've been sitting with something I've heard recently, and honestly, I've been conflicted. I'm not necessarily angry, and I most definitely am not hateful or interested in attacking anyone. I'm quite simply uncomfortable. I want to start this post by saying something I wholeheartedly believe that is as women, it is important that we are allowed to say that this uncomfortableness is authentically real. We should be able to acknowledge when something makes us uncomfortable, sit with that feeling, ask questions, and have an honest conversation about the why, without immediately being labelled as hateful, ignorant, or intolerant for doing so. There has been a recent conversation surrounding Drew Afualo's podcast about trans women and the experience of womanhood. The discussion included the idea that some trans women may experience a more beautiful understanding of womanhood because their relationship with femininity can be intentional, joyful and free from some of the painful experiences that many women associate with growing up female. Now don't get me wrong, I understand the sentiment behind wanting to celebrate trans women's experiences. I really do! But I also think something important gets lost when we start comparing one woman's experience of womanhood against another woman's and suggesting that one is somehow more beautiful. Womanhood isn't one experience, and it certainly isn't a competition.
Can we talk about the word "cis"?
I want to say something that I know some women in my community have been thinking but may be afraid to say. I didn't grow up calling myself a "cis woman." I grew up calling myself a woman. The term cisgender is a legitimate descriptive term used to distinguish someone whose gender identity corresponds with the sex they were assigned at birth from someone who is transgender. It isn't inherently an insult, and I understand why the term exists, but I also understand why some women feel strange hearing themselves referred to as "cis women" when they have spent their entire lives simply being told they were women. Language matters here because sometimes a word that is meant to describe a distinction can begin to feel like it is replacing an identity. I think we should be able to talk about that without immediately assuming hostility.
Because some of us have lived the hard parts of womanhood from the very beginning.
For many of us, womanhood wasn't something we consciously chose. It was something we grew into. It started with puberty. Our bodies changed, sometimes before we were ready for them to. We got our first periods and suddenly had to learn how to navigate a body that was doing things we didn't fully understand yet. We learned to keep a tampon or pad tucked away in our purse just in case. We learned about pregnancy and childbirth. Some of us became mothers. Some of us desperately wanted to and couldn't. Some experienced miscarriage or infertility. Some chose not to have children. Some had abortions. Then there are the experiences we don't always talk about as openly. The first time someone made an inappropriate comment about our bodies. The first time we realized we were being followed. The times we've walked a little faster to our car, checked the back seat before getting in, or texted someone, "I'm home," just so they knew we made it safely. Some of us have experienced harassment. Some have experienced sexual assault. Some have changed the way we dress, where we go, or how we behave because we've learned that being a woman can sometimes mean having to think about our safety in ways we shouldn't have to. Eventually, our bodies change again. Perimenopause. Menopause. Hot flashes, mood changes, sleepless nights, changing bodies, hormones that seem to have a mind of their own, and suddenly we're navigating an entirely new stage of being a woman. None of these things define what a woman is; of course they don't, but they are part of the lived experience of millions of women. I think that's where some of the discomfort in this conversation comes from. When we hear someone say, "Those things aren't what womanhood is about," we can kind of understand what they might be trying to say. I interpret it to mean they're most likely saying that women are more than our bodies. We are more than our bodies! We're more than our ability to have children. We're more than menstruation. We're more than the violence or discrimination we've experienced.I completely agree. However, there is a difference between saying: "These things don't define women." and saying "These things shouldn't be part of the conversation about women's experiences.", because they absolutely are! They are part of the stories many of us have been living since we were girls, and I think we're allowed to talk about those stories, too.
Womanhood can be beautiful AND difficult.
This is the part I think we're missing. Womanhood isn't beautiful because it's soft. It isn't beautiful because we're feminine, wear dresses, put on makeup, have children, or fit into some particular idea of what a woman is supposed to look like, and it certainly isn't beautiful because we've suffered. I think womanhood is beautiful because women are complicated, messy, strong, emotional, resilient, hilarious, exhausted, loving, stubborn, nurturing, independent human beings. We can love being mothers and still say, "I absolutely hated being pregnant." We can love getting dressed up and feeling beautiful, or live in sweatpants and not give a damn about makeup. We can be deeply feminine, not feminine at all, or somewhere in between. We can be mothers, daughters, wives, sisters, aunties, friends, caregivers, professionals, artists, athletes, leaders, introverts, loudmouths, tomboys, girly girls, and a million other things. Some of us will have children. Some won't. Some will desperately want them and never have them. Some will choose not to. Some of us will love every stage of getting older. Others will struggle with watching our bodies change. Some of us will feel incredibly connected to our femininity. Others won't, and all of those experiences can exist within womanhood. Maybe that's what gets lost when we try so hard to define what womanhood is. There isn't one experience that can speak for every woman. There isn't one way to be a woman. We don't all have the same story. We just happen to be writing our stories under the very big, very complicated umbrella of womanhood, and I honestly think there's something really beautiful about that.
But please don't make my experience less beautiful to make someone else's more beautiful.
This is where I think the conversation went wrong for me. I can absolutely understand why a trans woman might feel an incredible sense of joy, freedom and relief when she finally gets to live openly as herself, and honestly? I want her to have that. If she finally feels comfortable expressing herself in a feminine way, if she loves getting dressed up, discovering parts of herself she never felt free to express before, or simply feels at home in her identity for the first time, I don't want to take any of that away from her. I can celebrate that. I can respect that. I can even learn something from that. I don't understand why my experience has to become less beautiful for hers to be beautiful. That's the part that makes me uncomfortable. I don't need someone else's experience of womanhood to be the same as mine for me to respect it, and I most definitely don't need to be told that someone else's experience is more beautiful, more authentic or somehow deeper to appreciate what they've been through. My experience matters too. The things I've lived through matter. The things other women have lived through matter. This is where I think comparison starts creating a problem! The minute we start saying "this group of women understands womanhood better" or "this experience is more beautiful than that one," we're no longer simply sharing our experiences. We're ranking them! Honestly, haven't women had enough of being told that we're not enough? We're too emotional, too loud, too old, too young, too feminine, not feminine enough, too sexual, not sexual enough, too much, not enough. We really don't need to start doing that to each other. There should be room for a woman to say, "This is what womanhood has meant to me," without someone else needing to respond, "Well, my experience is more beautiful than yours." Maybe we don't need to agree on every part of what womanhood means, and that's okay. Maybe we just need to be willing to listen to each other's stories without turning them into a competition.
There are experiences we simply cannot understand from the other side.
A trans woman may have experiences surrounding transition, discrimination, dysphoria, being rejected by family, navigating society while transitioning, being misgendered or fearing violence that I will never personally understand. Those experiences are real, and deserve compassion. A woman who has lived her entire childhood and adolescence being treated as a girl also has experiences that a trans woman may not have personally lived. Growing up with the social expectations placed upon girls. Going through female puberty. Being sexualized as a young girl. Learning the rules girls are taught about safety. Experiencing menstruation. Potential pregnancy. Childbirth. Postpartum changes. Perimenopause. Menopause. Being treated differently because of a female body. Those experiences are real too! Neither experience needs to erase the other, and this is where I think nuance matters so much. I don't believe every trans woman has experienced male privilege in the same way. Transition, timing, appearance, race, class, sexuality and countless other factors change someone's experience enormously. I also think it's okay to acknowledge that someone who was raised and socialized as male may have experienced parts of the world differently before, during or after their transition. Acknowledging that isn't hatred. It's acknowledging that our histories shape us, and acknowledging that some women may carry experiences of male socialization doesn't make them less deserving of dignity, safety or respect. It simply means that their experience of womanhood isn't automatically the universal experience of womanhood. Just like mine isn't.
We need each other more than we need another argument.
The thing that makes me sad about conversations like this is that women are already dealing with so much division. We are fighting about our bodies. Our reproductive rights. Our safety. Our workplaces. Our children. Our bathrooms. Our healthcare. Our prisons. Our schools. Our sexuality. Our appearance. Our age. Our motherhood. Our choices. Now we're fighting over whose experience of womanhood is the "right" one. Meanwhile, women everywhere are still trying to figure out how to feel safe walking home. How to be taken seriously at work. How to raise our daughters in a world that still teaches them their value can be measured by how desirable they are. How to navigate our changing bodies without feeling ashamed of them. How to grow older without being made to feel invisible. How to exist in a world that has historically asked women to make themselves smaller. We don't need another hierarchy. We need solidarity.
To the women in my Esteem Team…
If you watched that podcast and felt uncomfortable, I want you to know something: you are allowed to feel that way. You don't have to hate trans women to believe that some of the comments were dismissive of women's experiences. You don't have to believe that trans women aren't women to believe that womanhood cannot be compared like a competition. You don't have to reject someone else's joy to protect your own experience, and you don't have to apologize for the body and life experiences that shaped you. Your period doesn't make you a woman. I think this is where we need to be careful with our words! When we talk about womanhood, we can't erase the very real experiences that have shaped generations of women simply because those experiences don't happen to every woman. Not every woman will have a period. Not every woman will experience pregnancy. Not every woman will become a mother. Not every woman will experience menopause. Not every woman will experience sexual harassment or violence, but so many women will. These experiences have shaped how generations of women have understood their bodies, their safety, their relationships, their choices and ultimately, themselves. So when we talk about womanhood, I think those experiences deserve a place in the conversation. Not because they are the only things that make us women. Not because every woman has lived them. Simply because they are part of the story for so many of us. I don't think acknowledging that takes anything away from anyone else.
There is enough room at the table.
There is room for both. has to be room for both. I want an Esteem Team where a trans woman can say, "My journey into womanhood changed my life," and another woman can say, "Growing up as a girl and becoming a woman has shaped me in ways I'm still trying to understand." Neither one has to look at the other and say, "But mine is more real." Or, "Mine is more beautiful." Or, "You don't understand womanhood the way I do." Because maybe we don't have to understand it in the same way. Maybe we can simply listen. Maybe we can say, "I haven't lived your experience, but I'm willing to hear about it," and maybe that's what we need more of right now. Womanhood isn't a competition. There isn't a prize for who has experienced it the hardest, the most beautifully, or the "right" way. It's just… life. It's growing up. It's figuring out who you are. It's changing. It's making mistakes. It's loving people. It's becoming a mother, or deciding not to. It's getting your period and wondering what the hell is happening to your body. It's laughing with your girlfriends until your stomach hurts. It's crying in the bathroom. It's learning how to feel comfortable in your own skin. It's worrying about your kids. It's starting over. It's getting older and realizing you're still figuring yourself out. It's the good stuff. It's the hard stuff. It's the things we expected and the things we never saw coming. Every woman has her own version of that story. So maybe we don't need to keep comparing our stories. Maybe we need to start listening to them. To say, "Tell me about your experience." To say, "I hadn't thought about it that way." To say, "That isn't my experience, but I can understand why it matters to you." Most importantly, to remember that making space for another woman's experience doesn't require us to erase our own. Your story matters. My story matters. Her story matters. There is room for all of our stories to be heard, and that's a beautiful space to be in.
Cheers,
Coach Jo 💗
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