I Am Woman: In a Feministic Society, What is a Woman?

At the turn of the millennium, and up until today, it seems as if our society is suffering from a unified gender crisis related in part to enormous media influence. The social norms that parents have been bestowing upon their children for decades now become questionable and less idealistic. However, in the traditional household I've been raised in, under two loving parents-both strong in personality and faith, I feel that my grasp on my own personal gender is still rooted in who I was meant to be, not who I was told to be.

I am the second daughter in a family of five. My sister is three years older than me. As a child, I had a variety of toys. I did have the traditional dolls, dress-up costumes, and pink bicycles. However, I also had some non-traditional female toys. As a ten year old, I began a rather extensive collection of baseball cards. I developed a growing passion for sports in general. I also played my first T-Ball game as a six-year old. Possibly a minor indication of a slight Electra complex, these were all activities I could handily participate in with my father.

As I grew to be of age, I began playing sports-volleyball, basketball, and eventually track. In grade school, I was one of four girls in my class of about twenty-five to participate in basketball. I remember the other girls doing more stereotypically feminine activities, such as cheerleading and gymnastics. I specifically remembering questioning myself, "Is what I'm doing here a girl thing, or a boy thing?" It did segregate me from the pack of girls in my class...which in a small private school could be a very painful thing. I continued to plug away at my athletic involvement. I was moved up in seventh grade to play with the older girls for both volleyball and basketball. I took more flack from the girls in my class to the point where I really had oly one female friend in my own grade.

Out of such a nasty situation, I did however develop many solid relationships with the boys in my class. It seemed to me, at least at that age, that girls were much more viscous than boys, that they were much more apt to backstabbing, malicious activity, and harmful gossip. As I grew older, I continued to have better relationships with males than females. Since my grade school years, I have found I have a very difficult time putting trust in relationships with females, compared to males.

Today, a little bit older and a little bit wiser, I realize that it's not females or males who are more trustworthy than the others. It's really me, as a female, who has to seek out those who I can and can't trust...be it male or female. I've found that in order to be a female in 2006, 2010, or even 2035, being a female means respecting yourself enough to demand the respect from others, but at the same time, respecting myself enough to allow those more traditional courtesies to not offend me in a state of arrogance.

To be female means to be confident, intelligent, sophisticated, and independent. However, those important characteristics do not mean sacrificing traditional respect for the female society or the male society. Many good things can come from the traditional values that have been taught for many years past. Yes, I believe that a woman should be truly devoted to just one man, her husband. Does that mean he should be any less devoted? Of course not. I also believe that there is no harm in a mother supporting her family by staying home to maintain a household while the father supports his family by going to work. Yet I also believe that there is nothing wrong with the reverse of that situation.

It is important for women everywhere to push for the liberties that they are entitled to have. I feel as though, in light of the Women's Movement and in light of the distinct boom in media pressure of the expectation of today's woman, or even girl for that matter, that women have lost their embrace on that which truly sets them apart. The ability and strength I have as a woman is something that no man can deny me. My ability to bear life, to endure possibly the most excruciating pain (I have yet to find out, but I've heard) a human can endure in the event that I may procreate-that's the most powerful thing a person can do.

The media demands that a successful female is one who is emaciatingly thin, with a phony tan, and bleached blonde hair that could change at the whim or the latest suggestion otherwise. That to me is not what a woman is about. My hair is dark. I wear a size twelve. And yes, I am pasty white and freckly. But that won't deny me my great rights and freedoms. I can still be strong. I can still be confident in my own opinions. I can still choose to be who I want to be on the basis of me, not what society tells me to be. And that freedom of expression of my own beliefs, my own ideas, and my own faith allows me to be a powerful, powerful woman.