Thoughts on Gender Essentialism

Photo by Jabari Timothy on Unsplash

To be woman is to be human

and not just the soft half

of a gendered whole.

Hold the expansiveness of possibility

in your mind and

mind the unease of

this seemingly new way

of being

that has always been

before the Father’s rule.

Woman:

any human who associates closely

with the socially constructed roles,

responsibilities, interests, joys

and sorrows related to

being a human female.

Subversion of power for sale.

“Provide and protect” become

“Destroy and harm” when we pull

back the veil of patriarchal secrecy.

When we dare to speak freely.

My mother’s double mastectomy

and hysterectomy taught me

that there’s no right way

to be a woman.

Society would say her

life-saving surgeries

made her less feminine.

Thankfully, the same English society

has no words for de-feminization

like how “emasculation”

has made some

men and boys

believe their inalienable essence

can be stripped away

by an external entity.

She has never stopped being

a strong, whole woman to me.

Society makes up the rules

and individuals comprise

the exceptions

yet aggregated individuals

comprise society.

As a woman,

I am more than what this body

can do for me -

the breasts, vulva, periods, and childbearing