Thinking Out Loud - On Womxnhood

In my thinking out loud series I share some of what I am grappling with as I navigate this world. I don’t have all the answers and these essays are a reflection of my current understandings, biases, and experiences. They are meant to be a source of dialogue and reflection to explore these big topics. 

March 8th is International Women’s Day. It’s a day that means different things to different folks. For me it is about coming together. It’s about lifting each other up. It’s about awareness of how far we have come and it’s also about awareness of how far we have yet to go - especially for folks with different lived experiences of womanhood. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. And really grappling with it too. 



8 years ago, when I started down the Happy V path, I ended a relationship, packed up all my belongings, and vowed to find my trust for the universe, to find my intuition and to connect with my inner “feminine” - whatever that meant. 

I was 28 - feeling totally lost and done trying to be a control freak about everything. I didn’t feel like things were working out  - I needed to try a different approach. News flash I still try to be a control freak about everything but maybe I’m a bit more graceful about it now. 

I had some amazing experiences on that journey and came to an understanding or awareness of this notion that we have two energies inside of us - a yin and a yang or a masculine and a feminine. We all have a different balance of those two energies and the patriarchal soup we are all swimming in heavily values the masculine or yang energy while totally devaluing the yin or feminine.

I could feel this in myself. I felt powerful when I was DOING, being ACTIVE, making DECISIONS within HIERARCHIES, managing projects in a STRAIGHT LINE where everything was CONTROLLED and MANAGED. My inner feminine? I equated her to a little hippy chick whose refrain was “relax man” and who’se advice was only really useful while on vacation. I devalued her completely. Her insights and intuitive hits -”maybe we shouldn’t do that, or maybe this guy isn’t right for us” were not important. I had plans damnit. 

So I really started diving into what being a woman meant to me. What embracing the “feminine” meant to me. I read a lot of books and took in a lot about how our vaginas, the cocktail of hormones we release during orgasm, and our womb power all relate back to our feminine. I love this idea. There’s such a romance to it. And also I started to feel like I was coming back to myself. Like I was living more whole with an awareness of my own voice. With an awareness that my inner hippy can be my inner powerhouse too. That I have two opposing energies I can draw from for strength depending on my needs. 

But is your body really what makes you a woman? 

Is being a woman being a mother?

Is being a woman having a period? 

Is it the way you dress? 

Your gumption and sass?

How emotional you are? 

The amount of grey matter in your brain?

I know it is none of those things. But then what is it?

I like being called a woman. I think of myself as a woman. I can write those two sentences and then I immediately ask myself -” well why do you like that, what does that mean for you”? The only things that come to mind are superficial and driven by all that media I’ve consumed in my little life - heels, power lipstick, softness and curves, smart and driven, intuition and power, surrender, beautiful man hands on my body.

So random really. Random because they are a mix of what makes me just me  - regardless of what genitals are between my legs - and a potent blend of every cultural stereotype I have ever consumed. I am a human. I am a person. With my own unique blend of testosterone and estrogen, with my own unique brain and set of experiences and that makes me me - regardless of the gender label I choose.

I’m just about to dive into a new book called Gender and Our Brains - How New Neuroscience Explodes the Myths of Male and Female Minds by Gina Rippon and I am so excited. Pretty much everything we think we know about being a “woman” or a “man” is learned not hardwired. I’m in the middle of this. We are all in the middle of breaking this down. 

I think the biggest point of struggle for me - beyond actively breaking down all these random and often harmful ideas about what it means to be a woman is that we still live in a world where women - specifically people with vaginas and breasts, and those who become mothers experience systemic barriers and harm in our world. We still live in a gender binary world.

On How to Be A Girl - one of my favourite podcasts ever - the mother of a trans daughter explores this very question.She talks about how in one breath she wants to tell her daughter that gender doesn’t matter - we are all just people - and no one should hurt you or hate you for who you are - and at the same time we very much live in a world where that is not true and a young person must be prepared for that.

So how do we navigate creating change for women, for people who identify as women with vaginas and periods and breasts and mothers while also creating change for all people who experience womxnhood - regardless of their genitals or skin colour or income level.

I think the first step is really to acknowledge what defines your womxnhood and the second step is to remember, always remember, that what defines your womxnhood is not what defines the womxnhood of others. Another person’s experience does not invalidate your own. It is just different. We can all get curious about other people’s experiences. We can all open up our minds to new perspectives and insights and we can all join each other at the bottom of the well - in which we are all simply souls that are a collection of experiences and neurons trying to get along together. How’s that for esoteric on a Wednesday for you. 

So in this spirit of learning I vow this womxns day to… 

• Read more books by trans, non-binary, black, indigenous and disabled authors

• Populate my social media channels with opinions and perspectives and lived experiences of people outside my reality

• Read the latest on gender science and keep up to date 

• Share what I learn widely and advocate, speak for and lift up my friends in these diverse communities so that their voices can be louder. 

Thanks for listening, friends. I’d love to hear your thoughts and perspectives. What comes up for you when you explore these topics. Keep your comments kind and constructive please.

Much Love, 

The Happy V