What is a woman?

I say ‘what’ and not ‘who’ because objectification is the path we’ve taken as a society to build gender stereotypes. This afternoon, I asked a friend, jokingly, about whether I qualified as a woman, given the fact that I’m rarely ‘feminine’. Then, I stopped. I realized that unknowingly, I let myself lapse into the norm of femininity. Being one who criticizes the way sexes are put in boxes, I found that I too was a victim of what can only be termed as brainwashing since I was a child.

Asking anyone to state the differences between a man and a woman (setting aside the obvious anatomical separations that one would most likely see) yields painfully predictable adjectives. Understanding, intuitive, gentle, caring, strong, dominant, protective, athletic, analytical. I can confidently leave those there and leave you, the reader, to put them into their typical categories – whether you personally agree with them or not. This is the bread and butter we’ve been brought up with – the girls having been taught how to butter the bread while the boys to eat it.

This isn’t an article about feminism. It’s but one of speculation and unfortunate observation.

Impassioned online activists would be appalled by my passivity, but I stem from a staunch disagreement with most of the sex-related aggression flying around. The fact that women are classified the way they are isn’t wrong. Sure, we are gentle creatures, however, the definition is incomplete - dangling from its poor architecture. With Women’s Day coming up, so are the various empowerment posts and articles – not to mention the angry ones about how there isn’t a Men’s Day for want of equality. The fact that these articles need writing or that there are battles in need of settling lend hand to how far our world is from fundamental equality.

The human race, for all its intelligence, virulence and dominance, is wonderfully diverse. We’ve spent eons putting ourselves on pedestals that balance tactfully on the point of every food pyramid. Why, then, can’t we offer ourselves enough credit to share our adjectives between genders and truly appreciate the multitude of combinations that are born from them to produce billions of inimitable individuals?

I leave here an old poem I once wrote about homosexuality, which, I now sadly find, holds true even in light of this post.

We put people into boxes and pack them away

Label them with thick, black markers

And stow them under strong tape.

Until being boxed up eats at their muscles

Causing their minds to atrophy

And their limbs to ache from cries for freedom.

Until their tired fists pound hard enough

Against the feeble cardboard,

Bogged down by insults and spite

Bogged down by hatred and judgement

By the weight of fear.

Until those pounding fists meet fresh air

Contaminating it with the beating blood

Of someone hungry for love.