Tagged

This month being Woman's Month, I found myself waking up this morning thinking about the word "woman" and what it means to be a woman. 

So after doing a little bit of research I discovered that contrary to what we believe, i.e. that the word 'woman' was derived from the word 'man', the word 'man' was originally a gender neutral word referring to 'human being'.  Originally the word used to refer to a male human being was the word 'wer' or 'werman'.  At the same time women were called 'wif' or 'wifman(n), meaning 'female human being'.  This later evolved into to different words namely 'wifmann' into 'woman' and 'wif' into 'wife'.  About a thousand years ago the word 'wer' disappeared and male humans began to be referred to as simply 'man'.  The word 'wer' is still found in words like 'werewolf' meaning 'man wolf'. 

Well, that is a bit of trivia about the word 'woman' itself, but what does it mean to be a woman?

First of all being a woman is being human, being a cognitive, emotional and wonderfully unique creature.  Society tends to put women into a box.  Society likes to attach tags to us, it makes them feel safe to be able to identify us by our labels.  We get cataloged and placed in neat little boxes in neat little rows.  Women themselves are the most avid catalogers themselves.  However, here comes the surprising news: women very rarely fit comfortably into these pre-made little boxes.  Since the earliest times women have protested to these confines, and no matter how hard the box-packers tried, they could not close the lids tightly enough!

Women are complex puzzles composed of amazing strengths and weaknesses.  We can be totally logical and irrational at the same time.  A woman is in tune with her emotions and intuitive about the emotions of those around her.  Women are taught endurance and perseverance from an early age.  We are blessed with wisdom and understanding.  We often operate on a high spiritual level and we nurture and teach those in our care.  We have an inherit need to reach out to others.

Not only do we possess amazing strength, and have weaknesses to just remind everyone that even super-beings are not perfect, we are endowed with grace and beauty.  Not the beauty that last for a fleeting moment, but beauty of the soul.  Women possess a beauty that is able to impact on the souls of our children and all who cross our paths.  We are more that caregivers we are care-creators, by our example we lead those following us to greater compassion.  We do not just give love, we teach them how to love.  We teach our children how to believe and how to live.

Being a woman is simply awesome. It is especially wonderful to be a woman in the twenty-first century.  Because of all the women who fought for our emancipation we can today fully enjoy being women.  We are no longer being limited to being the silent and demure ones.  We have a voice and we have a choice. I am so grateful to be a woman, because being a woman means that I can be whatever I want to be!!!  As a woman I am free to be wonderfully feminine.  I can be strong and frivolous, I can be practical and if I want to I may cry for no reason.  I can be absolutely me and I do not need to be an imitation of a man!