What It Means To Be A Woman

What does it mean to be a woman?  Well, in most cases, having a double-x chromosome will make you a woman (not excluding women who may be born with an xy-chromosome combination, or any other combination of the two).  So yes, being a women is compelex, even at the chromosomal level.

Being a woman can be both beautiful and awful. I love being a woman in a time and a part of this world where I have so many chances and opportunities. Where I can be who I am without having to fear retributions. Where I can study, work, drive a car, and wear what I want (to a degree); where I can stay single or get married, and if the marriage doesn't work out, can get a divorce. Where I could remarry after a divorce or after being widowed. A world where I can chose to have children or remain childless. Where I can persue a career inside and outside the home.

As this month the world remembers the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a place or horrors  for which no real words exist, I also remember that Germany was not always a place for women to be free.

During the Nazi-regime, the women's place was at home, as a homemaker and mother. Women with seven or more children received medals of honor; work outside the home was only acceptable if the husband was unable to provide for the family due to injury, desease, disability, or death. From a very early age on, girls were trained and brainwashed to fulfill their only duty to the Reich: to birth new soldiers for the Fuehrer. Female students at universities were berated for wasting their youth and beauty buried in books while they should be getting married and become mothers. In a speech at the Munich university, the Gauleiter (regional leader) went as far as to offer his adjutants as mates to the uglier students, should they have issues finding a husband.

We have come a long way from this time of terror, but in other parts of this world, women still suffer oppression, humiliation, and restriction. But there are strong and brave women everywhere, fighting for their natural right of equality, from Mahlala, who was attacked and nearly killed because of fighting for girls' right to education to the unknown women who get on the driver's seat of a car and hit the road in Saudi Arabia. And because of these women, who never give up, one day the world will be a place of equality for everyone!


This post was written as part of the Strong & Influencial Sisterhood project

 

A Rainbow On My Skin

It's Friday, another crazy week is over, one co-worker is going to be back in the office on Monday and I can tend to new projects, likely to accrue a ton of more overtime. But now it's time to relax, and look forward to a fun weekend with tons of sleep, good food, great friends, new games, and a visit to my grandparents.

To ring in the weekend, here's this week's cue to the FTSF:

I once saw the biggest...

... bruise. In one of my former lives, I was a martial arts fighter, the only girl among a bunch of guys who lived under the motto that, if a girl is daring enough to enter a ring with them, she's not getting any mercy. I stood my ground, until one day, I was felled by a low-swung kick. I heard a cracking sound, and the worst pain I had ever experienced by then. Somehow I got back up, and finished the fight. It was ugly. The bruise reached from knee to ankle, wrapping around half my leg, the shin bone was partially fractured. I was able to watch the beauty for about 2 months, turning from nearly black to a lighter blue, purple, green, and finally yellow, moving all the way down to my toes eventually. My mom was freaked, and I kept fighting. Just don't like to give up.


Have a great weekend, everyone!

Writings From The Ditch

I am suffering from an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which I like to call “The H”. One of the more common side effects of this lovely condition is depression. While my emotional depressions are usually well under control with the medications I receive, the physical depressions still hit in waves on and off. Right now, I am in the middle of one of them, and it hurts. It is difficult to get up in the morning; all my joints hurt. The light hurts my eyes; it takes almost all my efforts to lift the tooth brush to brush my teeth. It takes about 30 minutes until I am getting somewhat in gear, when the pain subsides and manifests itself as a dull presents in my lower back and knees. That is, when I start feeling the heaviness,  as if I had gained a hundred pounds over night. It’s pressing on my shoulders and slows my steps. I feel aged and tired; I cannot concentrate on my work; sometimes I just stare into nothing for I don’t know how long. I cannot get up to play with the girls. There are moments when I can pull myself together and push through it, but I’m definitely paying for it waking up the next morning, feeling as if I had not rested for a second but rather ran a marathon.

Physical depression usually hits me for a week or so every two or three months. So actually, I am doing much, much better than many others living with “The H”; most of the time I feel pretty normal - besides taking the meds - but every few months I am disappearing for several days, which is annoying for me, and probably difficult to deal with for many people around me. But no matter what, I have plans for this Friday and Saturday, and holing myself up in makeshift cave under my comforter. Since I’m off tomorrow and it will be the girls and me sans Richard for most of the day, who is taking his Immigration Test *finger crossing*, I might just follow through on my promise and take them on a movie date, or take them on another fun activity.

Over and over again, I need to tell myself that I am stronger than that. Depression will not dictate my life, neither my emotions nor my body. I will not look back and see dark pits in my lifeline, but a life that is full of fun and lots of love.