Being Feminine in My Identity - Self-Reflecting, Chapter 0001

Before I was born, my parents knew I would be female. My name is feminine, based on a variation of my paternal grandmother. This woman was a woman my father would constantly experience withheld affection and neglect from, and I cannot help but wonder if --- on some level --- that affected my upbringing. Surely, it did. My mother was a great beauty, truly one of the prettiest women I have ever seen in her youth. I see her beauty in the faces of my sister, cousins, aunt, and youthful images of my grandmother and great-aunt. I would often enjoy watching her put on her makeup, would try on her heels, and was also often dressed in immeasurably fluffy dresses as befits infant women of my culture that are doted on and obsessed over for their adorability and femininity. I was a flower-girl at my aunt's wedding, a humble at-home wedding. My uncle, a self-made man who immigrated to the United States, owned his own electrical company in Miami and had gone so far as to purchase and commission a miniature replica of my aunt's wedding dress for me, the tiny little flower-girl. In short, I have been adored, loved, deeply valued for my looks ever since I was an infant. It is a very strange thing to talk about, because it really does seem like a massive brag. Maybe it is, but I am not sure how else to put it into words other than try to explain that is the truth of my personal lived experience. The demands on my beauty only grew worse as I progressed in age. Abrahamic religion has always continually tried to shove down civilizations' throats and prevailed in blaming the suffering of all of humanity on women. Eve supposedly was the downfall of Adam, for having 'tempted' him into eating an apple. He willingly did it, but conveniently Eve was made to suffer. It is for this reason that Abrahamic religions curse women to a lifetime of periods, incredible pain and risk of death of childbirth, and even in the Christian New Testament disgustingly reinforces the belief in its scriptures that women should be ever-submissive to men. It is revolting, and though I can respect a healthy monogamous relationship, the fact that my lifestyle choice is ever-invalidated because of the ignorance of people to these very obvious and basic facts of life are unadulteratedly infuriating. What is all the more infuriating is that in spite of how much it made sense to trace family lineages down by the female line before the days where DNA testing was possible, it was ever-assumed for lineage and a family name to be "passed down" through the male. In summary, to add insult to injury, femininity has been denied proper credit for giving the gift of life in spite of its absolute necessity to nurture, grow, and sacrifice for a child. What we must look at as a society, species, people, is to question this: why? Personally, I think it comes down to sex, power, and control. I would love to hear your insights, though. Regarding abortion rights, I am politically active; at least, I try to be. I often write to my senators and representatives in my state of Florida. Yep, Florida. One of the last safe-havens for abortion in the south of the United States, and it has been exceptionally under threat since the rise of our current governor. As soon as the Republican party began to make exceptionally restrictive anti-abortion laws. There is one Republican senator presently in office who believes that my letters could not possibly be penned by a woman. I have written him several times, and he sincerely addresses me as, 'Mr. [isomo's legal last name].' It is my maiden name, I kept it because I refused to take my husband's last name and lose even a micron of my identity. Everything I do, every way I live my life is in complete and total defiance of the oppression of my gender. I refuse to submit." (Unless we are talking bedroom, but that is an ENTIRELY different story.) I immediately sought out my sterilization; I had been a fencesitter for ages on whether or not I wanted children. I even thought I would have them, having gone so far as to sign up for my previous company's "short-term-disability" insurance. Such an insurance would cover a portion of time-off during pregnancy, as if you have insured and protected PTO since this country continues to "celebrate" yet punish women for having children. My husband was a fence-sitter, but I knew I never wanted to have children in my life. I knew it was a gamble and risked my marriage if he did not agree with my decision. I knew this, and still had to make my choice anyway. This decision was also a deeply personal and satisfying moment to stick an eye in the face of a society that consistently says to me that I have no value as a female other than to be a broodmare. I refuse. I simply refuse to be told or acknowledge that I do not have value as a female unless I am giving birth to a child. Motherhood is lovely, but it is a sacrifice I am not and was not willing to make for my life. Ever since I was a young girl, having witnessed countless women among my family, friends, even acquaintances that had children they were not prepared for, I was ever-saddled with "helping" the women change diapers. Saddled with helping to babysit. Where were the men? Why was this always a responsibility thrust upon women? If it takes two to make a child, where were the other halves present in caring for and shouldering the burden of raising a child? Why was it that, in spite of myself being a child, there was an expectation for me, a girl, to help the women with their babies while the adult men sat and chatted having clinking beers? I knew I never wanted to suffer such a miserable indignity in my own life, and I am glad that I could have the self-awareness as an adult to really understand myself and not submit to society's expectations of me. As an adult, I realized how much of my childhood was affected by traumas regarding this that cemented my decision. I will share one particularly disturbing one: as a twelve-year-old, I was asked by a stranger female to "watch her baby" in the pool at a family barbecue. I was a child, playing with the other children, but just because I happened to be the "oldest female," I was voluntold to watch an infant with her little floaty ring so her mother could have a break while the father had beers with his friends. We played in the pool, but as is want to happen with children who SHOULD NOT be responsible for other children, disaster happened. As I played, I had not realized the baby had tipped her little floating ring over, and her floating ring was trapping her and essentially pinning her in place and causing her to drown. Fortunately, the father noticed this and ran over to save his own child. Again, a couple and child I had no attachment towards, no familiarity with, and was commanded to take care of their child simply for being a female of supposed "old enough" age to need to know how to take care of children. AT TWELVE. I was horrified that a child almost drowned because I was not watching it. It was a massive trauma to deal with at twelve and still haunts me to this day. It is also one of the many many reasons I decided that I was robbed enough of my childhood with these ridiculous expectations of motherhood that I eventually said, "never." Furthermore, in my youth as a girl, I always loved playing with Barbie. I collected her dollhouse, her remote-controlled corvette, and I often had her go on adventures with her girlfriends and on dates with her boyfriend. She was always traveling and doing something new and exciting, so you can imagine how thoroughly unimpressed I was whenever I received a baby doll as a child from acquaintances for Christmas. I did not understand at the time as a child why I felt the way I did then, but now as an adult I am fully aware of how much of a slap-in-the-face it was for even a child-me. Do you know what the saddest part about motherhood is? The fact that I have, on more times than I can count on my hands in my life, personally witnessed and been told by mothers that I have made the right decision for myself. The sad fact that so many women have openly confessed to me in confidence how much they regret their decision to have children. They will never say it aloud to society, to their husbands, and the decent of them would never say it in front of their children, but to an outcast of society like me... it is easy to shed one's sins to a person no one actually takes seriously. On a lighter note, it does not bother me that I am not taken seriously. I still enjoy my life, and usually try to be optimistic about everything. I have my adventures, my beautiful house, my sexy husband who I have tons of worry-free sex with from my bilateral salpingectomy sterilization. I may be a woman that society tries to consistently punish and bring to heel, but I refuse to submit. I find power in my defiance and freedom, and to me, that is what it means to be feminine. To never submit, to always rebel in spite of the many atrocities men in power thrust upon women. The raping of women's careers by lesser men get themselves ahead. The deceit and sneaking and mind-games in trying to pit females against other females for their own entertainment. The ever-present risk of a woman's violation or risk of death for spurning a male lover. It is for all these reasons that I choose to celebrate my fellow women consistently, and all the truly GOOD men of the world that also refuse to submit to such depraved values of an unenlightened society. Now, more than ever, do women need the help of truly good men. Though we are more than capable of defending ourselves, the work to improve society would absolutely progress much more rapidly and positively if the two sexes could work to defeat these corruptions in tandem. We now know what it means to me to be female; what does it mean to be a man? Are the two sexes doomed to be at-odds for the rest of time? I would like to think not; if we could simply remove these outdated values that are a boulder tied to the neck of society, I believe that both men and women can once more enjoy a true paradise together of a world as true equals.