To Be A Woman

Some days, womanhood feels like something you have to define for yourself.

Today, while running a women’s 5K in Savannah with my mom, I found myself thinking about what it truly means to be a woman and why the women in my life have shaped so much of who I am. My mom is 62 years old, and she ran the entire race in 37 minutes. Watching her strength, determination, and spirit reminded me of the women who came before her and the legacy they built for the rest of us.

I am so lucky to come from a family of strong and powerful women. I had the opportunity to spend six years with my mom’s mother, a retired WAVE in World War II and a mother of five. I was also lucky enough to have nineteen years with my dad’s mother, who raised two children while returning to school to pursue her own education and career, which she dedicated the rest of her life to. Both of these women inspired everything that came after them. The next generations were filled with C suite executives, lawyers, lobbyists, musicians, athletes, and, most importantly, mothers.

As women, we are so often placed into categories. There are stereotypes that say we love pink and glitter, hate sweat and dirt, and somehow do not belong in spaces of higher education or high level sports. For hundreds of years, society pushed the idea that women were not mentally or physically capable in the same ways as men and while so much has changed, those narratives still linger.

 From such a young age, we as women endure things that require immense strength. By fifteen, or often even younger, many girls begin dealing with pain every single month that would leave most people bedridden. Still, women continue to run marathons through that pain, hike mountains, build homes, care for families, lead companies, even fight in wars.

Then there is the transition into womanhood itself, where society begins to see you through a different lens. Historically, becoming a woman meant becoming ready for marriage and family. While times have changed and many of us are no longer expected to marry young, the objectification and expectations placed on women have not disappeared.

This brings me to something I am deeply passionate about.

I was surrounded by strong and independent women growing up, so I never felt pressure to find a boyfriend. Yes, I have one now, and yes, I love him dearly, but for years it was never something I actively sought out. A big part of that was because so many men I encountered seemed to talk about women in ways that disgusted me. Whether it was outright misogyny or simply the quiet desire to dim my light, it was sickening.

I am a woman with dreams and even some accomplishments, and yet I have had people try to minimize them. How is someone with a sneaker ranking website going to tell me that rowing at an Olympic level is not an accomplishment simply because I did not make it to the Olympic stage? I wish that was the only time a comment about how I’m not good enough got under my skin. My personal favorite though, being told I am too pretty to be taken seriously in business or in a corporate setting. That one, unbelievably, came from another woman.

Which leads me to my final thought. After everything women go through universally, why do we continue to tear each other apart?

Supporting women is about so much more than complimenting a stranger’s outfit, although kindness is always beautiful. Real support happens in the environments where women are often underrepresented and already fighting to prove they belong, in classrooms, in boardrooms, in sports, and in leadership spaces.

That support showed up during today’s 5K. I experienced that kind of support. Around mile two, when we both needed it most, we came together to inspire each other. Two strangers bonded by one thing, being a woman. In a moment when I felt like I was not fast enough or strong enough, she ran past me and simply said three words, “You got this.” Those words were enough to make me quicken my pace so we could finish that race together. That one interaction this morning inspired this whole blog post. If that doesn’t say something about the power we have when we support one another then I don’t know what does.

So I guess that is my idea of being a woman.

It is women coming together when we need it most. It is something deeper than a compliment. It is the shared strength of knowing what we endure and choosing to lift one another higher anyway. It is what makes us strong as businesswomen, athletes, daughters, and mothers.