What does it mean to be a woman?

Being a woman means having the freedom to do whatever I want to do, actions women in past generations never had the liberty to do. It means to love myself, fall in love, have my own family, learn without limits, and have complete autonomy over my mind and body. And all that because I choose to. The meaning of womanhood varies for every female in this globe. Yet, I had the pleasure of speaking to five different women. Five ladies of different ages, background, hobbies and family life. I stepped into each interview thinking their opinions on womanhood would be utterly different from each other, but that wasn’t the case. I ask them all the same 20 questions and my main conclusion? We’re not so different from each other as we like to think. Many factors play into that, but could it be that Marion and Milica both grew up in London and Georgie in Winchester? Or that Katerina moved to England from Greece at the age of 8? And Matilda, well, she’s still a child growing up in London. Maybe we all think so similarly because we’re in the same echo chamber. Still, if I were to speak to five different women in China or Morocco, their opinions would definitely vary.

Marion, 61

I always knew Marion as the mother of my best friend; I was aware of her work for the community and was intrigued to learn more about her. And to my surprise, getting to know Marion as the radical feminist she once was and still is, shocked me, not in a bad way, but more in a way of admiration. So, I’ll start from the beginning. Marion grew up in London to Irish parents, and she left school at 16 without any qualifications because “It just wasn’t something we were bought up to believe we could do”. After a string of various jobs in a Fish and Chip shop, several office jobs and even one job where she was doing the wages in a company- all this at the age of 17! By that time, she had left home, and without the economic support of her parents, she had to make ends meet. Something in her made her realise that it was important to have qualifications, So Marion decided for herself she “would go back to college and do O and A levels, “I wanted to do every single thing I didn’t do at school, so that’s what I did, and I did quite well.” What’s fascinating is while completing her qualifications she was squatting all over London. “I was squatting in Brixton and different places, and this is when I was like 17 or 18, so it’s very young and looking back on it now because I’ve got a daughter, I just think I was a baby out in the world and sometimes it was a bit too much.” In the prime of her adolescence in the 70s, Marion found her voice in a working-class women’s group. By complete coincidence, she randomly ran into this ad on the tube, a group dedicated to raising your consciousness and becoming aware of your position.

In summary, she became a feminist because of male violence towards women and Marion made noise. In the time of the Yorkshire Ripper, she took to the streets reclaiming the night, put stickers all over the underground with ‘put men off the streets’ and some other crazy things she “didn’t want to get published”. Problems that began her journey as a feminist in her late teens are still among the main reasons she is still a feminist.

I think it’s obvious what kind of woman Marion is. She’s definitely a feminist and a radical one. She loves people, her friends, animals and travelling. She loves to dance and is learning to speak Spanish. She’s travelled extensively around the globe but tells me specifically of a trip she took to India alone at the age of 25. “I saw things that you don’t see on television, a woman with her baby in her arms, it was obviously dying in front of me, and there was nothing I could do, so how that affected me when I came back, I just really appreciated the fact that I had grown up on this side of the world”. What sticks with her the most when travelling is the people, how they dance, their customs, that they’re so open. All this further reiterates what kind of person Marion is, someone who loves people and to thrives in an environment where she’s learning.

“When I’m not self-conscious, I feel excellent it’s one time I feel really good, I try to feel powerful when I’m walking down the street at night because I don’t feel powerful, so I try to make out that I am so that nobody will attack me.”

“Society likes to hold up the idea for the perfect woman which I quite nicely, don’t want to be. It’s supposed to be completely self-sacrificing, not having any sense of self and it’s all about how you look. That’s what I guess society wants, a woman so perfect.”

It’s strange to think that beauty standards have affected woman for so long. Like many, I assume that absurd beauty standards are directly linked to the rise of social media. That isn’t the case. “you know a woman is supposed to have perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect nails and if you don’t have all of that, it’s tough and it also makes you feel vulnerable; I wouldn’t want to relive some of those moments… I wish I could have just told them to fu*k off”. She laughs it off while telling me this but thinking about those hard times in her youth makes her thankful social media never existed then.

Motherhood came later in life for Marion. Nevertheless, she describes it as the best thing in her life. In her 20’s she was wandering around the world, in her 30’s she got a first-class with honours in counselling psychology and then in her late 30’s came Ellen, her only daughter “I wish I would have known earlier how much I wanted to have children, it’s the greatest gift and the best experience”.

Marion is an incredibly successful woman, but with that comes its challenges. As mentioned before, she achieved her BA in counselling psychology and later did her master’s in public health. For a while, she was head of health improvement for Haringey council, an incredibly senior job. “I had the role of drug and alcohol strategy manager, thinking of all the drug issues for the whole of Haringey. Challenging issues, how to help with addiction, rehabilitation and how you work with police and probation.” As well as working for Haringey council, Marion helped set up a community that helped black ex-crack cocaine users that had been out of prison for ten years. “I believed in them, commissioned them, a lot of people doubted me and said I couldn’t do it because they were drug users, and now 20 years on, they’ve gone on to win awards. I supported them to set up as a charity, eventually grew and grew and became a commissioner. I feel proud of that”. She continues to share her experiences having such a senior position; men continuously undermining her and some situations too uncomfortable to even type.

“Funny, loving, adventurous and outgoing” a few words she struggled to find to describe herself; funnily enough, in our conversation, I could have thought of those and more to represent her in an instance. Marion might not be reclaiming the night, shouting from the top of her lungs around Soho like she was in the 70s, but now, she’s back in touch with her feminism, fighting for those here and internationally. From joining talks and seminars to even writing letters to PMs like David Lammy. She’s quite the woman with an interesting story to tell and just like she said, “we’re just amazing, what an amazing thing we can do with our body. We have friendships in a way’s men can’t. The way we look, our shape, we’re truly incredible. All the things we do, from birth, working, having friends, hobbies it’s incredible. We balance everything.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Katerina, 42

As we sat in her garden on a sunny May afternoon, Katerina began to tell me her story. She was born in Athens in the late 70s and later moved to West London when she was eight. Spending most of her school years in a small Greek school, her life felt exactly the same as the one she had back in Greece, minus the sunny weather, obviously. It wasn’t till she was fifteen and moved to a girl’s English school where the difference in culture shook her world. She went on to study anthropology at UCL, then a masters on the same subject and for or a while, she worked in a magazine. A little bit later achieving a PhD in anthropology. Although she worked for some time in the field, it wasn’t long until she devoted most of her time to her two children.

Katerina isn’t a radical woman, but aware, she wouldn’t describe herself as sensitive or an “emotional type of person”. She’s energetic and gets on with stuff, and if she doesn’t have a project, she gets bored quite quickly, which, as she said, “is a big problem for me”. The meaning of being a woman to her comes from stability, being able to stand on her own two feet, both financially and in her career. And like any woman, the idea of having something to call your own, your independence, and not having anyone live your life is the meaning of womanhood. `Which in all honesty does provide you with the power you need.

Our conversation was very much centred on the idea of motherhood and her career. Maybe the fact that she has two children of her own allows her to give her uncut and honest opinion on the subject. Motherhood is probably the hardest thing she’s done; it makes her feel guilty, pushes her to the limits and is the most rewarding thing all at the same time. Having had children makes her feel proud to be a woman, and from an evolutionary standpoint, she believes the woman was created for that reason and, of course, to look after men.

 A “modern” woman for Katerina is someone “Educated, someone who works, earns enough to be able to support herself. A fulfilling professional life. But also, one who knows how to compromise and have a family”. Strangely, when she spoke of this, she made it seem as though she didn’t belong in any of those categories. However, from what I know, she ticks every single one of those boxes. She’s educated, has a beautiful family and is the administrator at a Greek Orthodox church; it may not be what she wants to do, but she’s still only forty-two.

Katerina is a balanced woman; she lacks confidence and struggles to fathom how incredible and significant her career and education genuinely are. She is a nurturing mother and a patient wife, and hearing what she had to say about womanhood was compelling.

Georgie, 32

Georgie would describe herself as a strong, sensitive and sassy lady, and in my hour conversation with her, I can wholeheartedly confirm this. Georgie was brought up in Winchester, and after having travelled around the world, she decided to study English literature at Leeds University and later move to the “big mean city”, London. After many “crappy jobs” that she supposedly wasn’t good at, she eventually decided to leap into the creative realm. Navigating herself through the world of interior design, she began assisting to an interior designer, which in her words is “another story in itself because it was totally horrific”. After six long years, she finally made the big jump to work for herself and after finding her first client in New York City through Instagram, the key to the world at the moment; I think she can confidently say she’s finally finding her feet in the workplace.

“I could finally do something I wanted to do for myself, and it’s been really gratifying. When you really want something really bad, the doors do start to open”.

The big question we’ve been waiting for, what kind of woman is Georgie? She would describe herself as two types, she can be bold, confident and outspoken, but on the flip side, she knows she can be susceptible and a “big cry baby”, super caring and empathetic. She continued to tell me that she could always understand other people’s feeling a lot, and with a giggle in her voice, she would say to me, “my mum would probably tell you I didn’t, so I don’t know.”

For Georgie and many women alike, feeling powerful means being confident and independent and having the strength to say no. Finding that power and being part of womanhood are things that go hand in hand. Just like Georgie said, having girlfriends, a strong relationship with maternal figures, and just being able to call a friend about nothing or talk about how you feel. There’s truly nothing like it, and I’m sure that idea of friendship will resonate with many of the woman reading this piece. 

In this tech age where we’re constantly on our phone and continuously scrolling through Instagram, it would take a person with incredibly thick skin to not be affected by the beauty standards, both men and women. “You’re constantly seeing pictures of skinny women laughing with their friends at the beach, and you instantly think I should look like that or I should be doing that, but instead, I’m at home eating a bar of chocolate. We’re constantly affected by this notion of perfection which is false”.

Talking to Georgie almost felt like a conversating with an old friend, and as we make endless silly jokes about baby names and the baby name books she used to buy when she was younger; at that moment, I could really tell that the baby fever was in the air and that she’s definitely ready and excited for this new chapter in her life. I go on to ask her if she thought her choice of having children defined a woman’s worth, and her answer was noteworthy: “The world wouldn’t go around if people didn’t have children and didn’t put that energy into things they truly love. They should be as valued’. I never stopped thinking about it this way; I never believed a woman needed to have children feel whole, but what she said was incredibly authentic.

I had never had the pleasure of meeting Georgie but speaking to her made me understand even more the importance of female friendships; the sisterhoods we create with women we meet later in life is like no other. For her, being around her family and her “girlfriends” is what makes her feel most liberated and safe, and funnily enough, it’s what makes her feel proud to be a woman.

Although Georgie felt as though she had lost her voice and confidence in the past six years, she finally found her voice again and learned to overcome her past struggles. Her female identity is secure and speaking to Georgie about her meaning of womanhood and what it means to be a woman was an absolute pleasure.

Milica, 21

Like your typical Arts student, Milica is trying to balance everything in life. From her degree, to her job at a café to her summer internship, this is the new normal for the average student.

And as we continue to laugh and converse, I ask her the big question-what kind of woman are you? She answers with: “very sensitive, very emotional, that’s it”. We both continue to giggle at her answer and then the conversation gets a little more serious. Her power derives from confidence and feeling sure of herself. Being nice and having the courage to start a conversation with strangers makes her feel good and powerful. Although this concept may be strange to some, I understand what she means.

I continue to ask her about womanhood and her understanding of it “we’re nurturing by nature. “Our whole meaning isn’t to bring children to this earth, but regardless it’s a beautiful thing and something so powerful. Such a magical ability”.  The idea of being a mother is something that naturally is in us, for some woman at least and for Milica, this is definitely the case. She doesn’t know how to feel about it because “I’m not a mother”, but it’s something mighty for her. To carry a child for nine months and then to raise it, it’s unfathomable.

Being around the same age naturally meant we would have the same understanding of beauty standards; having grown up in the same era and with the rise of social media logically means we struggle with the same problems. “The perfect person doesn’t exist. We’re all learning as it goes. No one should act like they’re better than anyone else because we’re all on the same boat.” Her voice in this instance was so assertive, and I know this was something she felt passionate about and something that probably has affected her. She’s conscious that you always want what you can’t have but being grateful is a must because “at least we have two legs and two arms.”

Milica comes from a Serbian/ Croatian background and is the first one in her family to go to university and get a degree. Well, frankly, that not only makes her proud to be a woman, but just proud of herself. And although it has been one of the biggest challenges for her this far, it’s definitely been and will be one of the most rewarding.

The way she spoke about her family, Croatia, and her safety when being around them seemed like an undeniable love for her heritage and her family. Her voice was full of love and how she spoke about her biggest inspiration, her grandmother took my mind to Croatia with her.  Her grandmother is the ideal woman for her; she’s caring, kind, assertive, knows everything about nature and grows all her own produce, “she’s just so strong and sustainable.” Croatia, her home and her family are what makes her feel grounded.

Women are the balance to this earth. We’re naturally nurturing. We both believe we were created to an extent to balance and nurture the earth, yet when asking her about some challenge’s woman face today, it’s quite heart wrenching that this a reoccurring issue with most women, including myself.

“Not being able to wear what you want to wear. I always dress like a boy because I’m uncomfortable with people commenting or looking at me. I don’t I like confrontation, so I don’t particularly appreciate having to tell people to stop being weird to stop looking at me. I want to dress girly and nice, but it’s challenging because I feel worried.”

She’s creative, caring and patience. Her endeavours and trials are similar to many women of 21. Her idea of womanhood and her feelings towards femininity are wise and frank. I know I can say the opinions voiced are how many of us women feel in our early 20’s.

Matilda, 8

Matilda is probably the smartest 8-year-old I’ve ever come across in my 21 years of life. Her youthful soul is present at all times, but her mind is one of a middle-aged woman. Sometimes, I have to double-check that I’m talking to a child. Matilda will speak to you about science, drawing and books for hours; she’ll run frantically through a park barefoot and jump in the mud. And she will confidently tell you what kind of little woman she is. In her own words, she’s “adventurous, funny and smart”.

Children are more aware than we believe, and the idea of power and how to assert it is in us since birth, and for Matilda, her power stems from her imagination. The concept of femininity isn’t something she’s conscious of, but it’s more like a big joke, understandably. I asked her what it means to be a woman, and she answered with all seriousness: “women live longer than men”. I can’t argue with that. That’s her meaning of womanhood, for now.

This is when Matilda’s incredibly mature mind shines through. “Beauty standards are weird because they always have to be a certain way and they never know how they really want to be” and for her, one of the most significant challenge’s women face today is “TikTok and stuff like that” the idea of perfection social media spreads to all their users is something an 8-year-old girl can comprehend.

We continue talking about motherhood and how she believed a woman was created “to have babies”. She’s not wrong, most of us can bear children, and that’s what some could argue truly differentiates us from men. Matilda is the only maternal grandchild from a Malaysian family, and she felt as though she had to have children or else her lineage would stop there, but she confessed that it’s “a lot of pressure on me, having babies hurts”. I promise you; this was a real conversation I had with a child.

Our conversation was short and sweet, but if there is something I’m sure of is that Matilda’s mind will bring her a bright future. Maybe she will become an inventor like she aspires to be. But for now, you’ll find her reading books, drawing and roaming the garden looking for her favourite insects. And her famous last words: “I’m proud to be me because of my brain”.