(CW: weight, body image, gender stuff)

My relationship with womanhood has always been strained, in part because my relationship to my body has always been strained.

I am pear-shaped, in the truest sense of the term. My hips are the widest portion of me. Turn me around, look at my silhouette, and you’ll see that my stomach juts out; I have very small, non-perky breasts.

This wasn’t how women were supposed to be shaped. Or, at least, that’s the message I internalized from every pop starlet, every kids’ show, every billboard and magazine and movie and clothing ad.

Women were supposed to have bigger chests. We were supposed to be thin, flat-stomached and dainty. Smooth luscious curves and hourglass figures.

When I walked through department stores with my mom, sometimes—well before I actually hit puberty—I’d stare at the photos of lingerie models and wonder how it felt to have “real” boobs.

The feminine was inextricably linked to the body. I couldn’t separate the two in my mind. I was told, in so many wordless images, that women were meant to appear a certain way; to behave a certain way; to be a certain way. What choice did I have, little ten-year-old me, other than to nod and believe what I was told?

I worried my shape would keep boys from being drawn to me.

And in a religious subculture where much of my worth was predicated on one day meeting a man, marrying and settling and popping out babies, accepting my duty as vessel for the future soldiers of God’s Holy Army—that idea, of being seen as unattractive, was in its own quiet way excruciating.

How could I ever fulfill my one purpose, i.e., how could I birth these said babies, if I couldn’t even adhere to the most basic image of what a woman was?

But my body wasn’t my only defect. I had other flaws, too. Other boxes which I failed to check.

I thought we were meant to have intrinsic qualities instilled in us by the Creator: characteristics that set us apart, that defined us as “the fairer sex.”

Meekness. Mildness. Elegance and grace.

Conventional beauty.

Timidity. Softness.

Tender-hearted wisdom, and a laugh that lilted like birdsong.

I possessed few—if any—of these traits. My hair was perpetually frizzy, my laughter came out in a cackle. My shirts were too ill-fitting and my nails were all chewed short.

When a narrow expression of femininity is what you believe your creator god mandates, then any perceived departure—any lack or “falling short”—can feel like a wrong and sinful transgression.

Of course, I at some point grew resentful. I rebelled in my own tiny ways. Part of me bucked against what was expected. I cut my hair short and stopped wearing makeup and let my leg stubble grow long. I bought a men’s flannel and wore it every fall, content in the secret knowledge I’d found it in a department not meant for me. But even these cosmetic shifts, these perfectly harmless subversions, were met with some measure of guilt and hesitation.

I hesitated, because my own definition of “woman” was just as narrow as the men I’d grown up with.

What is womanhood, exactly?

And what does it mean to be one?

It’s only in the past year I’ve started to examine this. To ask the question, to look inward, and to do my best to answer it. Some days, it seems easy. Other days, it feels impossible.

If womanhood is defined by more than the way you’re shaped; the way you look; the way you walk; the way you dress; the way you laugh; the genitalia you’re born with; the amount or lack of sexual appeal you hold for the patriarchal straight men who view you… then what, in truth, is it?

Is it an essence? An aura? A spiritual knowing, as integral to a person’s being as their own heartbeat? Is it a certain energy, bendable and flexible, able to be moved and molded depending on how each individual wants to wield it?

Or—perhaps—is it as simple as in the immortal words of Lizzo: “If you feel like a girl, then you real like a girl”?

I can’t say for sure. And I really don’t have to. Trying to define “womanhood” or “femininity” is what leads to us reinforcing those outdated standards, those unspoken rules that have made me and others feel so ugly, inadequate, and unloved.

Instead, I believe, it’s up to each of us to answer the question for ourselves. We can only define these things insofar as how we identify and who we know ourselves to be.

It isn’t about anyone else. For me? It’s just about me. And for you, it’s just about you.

So. Okay then.

Again, I turn inward. I shift my question to be something more productive.

…

Am I a woman?

It’s strange, because allowing the meaning of it to expand—not restrict—is what’s led to me becoming more comfortable calling myself one (most days). I realize now that I can be a woman without a bigger cup size, or an hourglass shape, or a dainty way of moving, or skirts in my wardrobe. My pear hips never did in fact disqualify me. But, for too long, I felt like they did.

Now, though: here, with this newfound lack of restriction comes a freedom to embrace and express my femininity in ways I didn’t expect.

I call myself a woman, because it’s simply who I am.

And no one else gets to tell me that I’m wrong.

- - -

And maybe this isn’t the end of it.

Because maybe my preconceived notions run deeper.

Maybe there’s more I have to re-evaluate, to excavate.

Maybe it’s never been a question of “either/or.”

Perhaps—all along—it’s been a question of “and.”