Being a Woman Shouldn’t Be This Hard

Being a woman is hard.

It’s not just hard because, as a woman, I bleed five days a month and my mood is regulated by my hormones, but it’s because I realized I was born into a society that values men more than women and I saw the disappointed look on my Asian father’s face for not having a son. See, to him, only sons — not daughters — are able to handle important matters in the family and, well, out there in the world.

It’s hard from the first PE class when my gender and physical strength were tied to one word — weak, from the time I struggled to get my voice heard and my opinions valued as I was the only woman in the room, and from the realization that I will always have to do more and better to prove my ability and worthiness.

Being a woman means nothing ever seems to be right.

I’m told every day that I need to change something about my body or my face to be happy, to be accepted, and to be loved.

I’m taught that beauty is essential to my identity and giving birth is my fundamental “purpose”. And thus, if I’m not beautiful, yet single and childless, there must be something inherently wrong with me that needs to be fixed.

Though, if I’m beautiful, it’s even a greater sin because it will be all that I’m seen for — not my brain, my soul, or anything that makes me a real person.

As a man touches me and tells me I’m sexy while disregarding all that I’m and have to say, I come to hate every feminine part of my body, my curves, my attractiveness because I’m led to believe that they stand in the way of me being appreciated as a human.

Being a woman is hard because my body and sexuality is somehow everyone’s business.

I’m judged for the clothes I wear, the people I’m with, and every little choice I make about what to do with my own body.

I’m compared to cows and locks, and my sexuality becomes a commodity attached to my value.

Also, when it comes to sex, there is really no way to win as a woman: If I sleep with a man too soon, I’m a slut. If I refuse his advances, I’m a prude.

And because he’s a man, it’s understandable for him to NOT be able to control himself and want to have sex with me, but it will be my fault if I’m assaulted or raped by him because I don’t know how to say “no”, I don’t have self-respect, my clothes are too revealing, or I’m stupid.

Even if I’m not assaulted or raped, I will always have to worry about being seen as easy and cheap even though it’s just as normal of me as of a man to have sexual desires when being intimate with someone I’m attracted to.

I need manuals and instructions to breathe, to live, to please others because I’m a woman. My achievements fall into a “niche” category and my job title is gender-specific.

I’m a woman so I’m told I’m “too emotional”, “too sensitive”, “too vulnerable”, “too weak.”

I cry myself to sleep as I struggle to be loved for the person I’m — not for being a female I physically appear to be, not as a sexual object I’m degraded to be.

All that being said, I will never deny that being a woman is powerful and wonderful.

I love being a woman the way I love my mother, sisters, grandmothers, and all the women in the world.

I wouldn’t trade anything for these feminine curves, imperfect stretch marks, for being able to create new lives and the magical maternal bond I would have with my child from inside my womb till their first cry — if I ever choose to have one.

But, yes, the whole thing is incredibly, ridiculously hard.

At times, I don’t even know how to be a woman.

I may continue to cry and struggle, but I guess I have no better choice than to start accepting myself as a woman and embrace every bit of my womanliness.

Being a woman is hard, but I’m strong and I will fight and try my best.

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Previously published on “Equality Includes You”, a Medium publication.

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