Woman to Woman

Research of the Woman

The woman, simply defined as, “The female of the human race.”

Reading those words I envisioned the image of a lady with her legs straddled on a table.

Her face twisted in anguish and pain.

She grabs her legs and with great strain,

SHE PUSHES!

I can hear her screams and moans in the process of childbirth.

She exhales and with that last push, a baby girl is birthed.

A child emerges into this place called life, but some refer to as hell.

By definition, who is the woman?

The lady on the table or the baby she holds?

As she smiles and looks into her daughter’s face, they both are members of the female race.

It doesn't make sense to me, so I ponder the definition, praying for the mystery to unfold,

forcing my mind to reveal the things that I have been told.

My Grandmother talked about a strong black woman.

Could race play into the characteristics of a woman?

Because I was born with brown skin, full hips, thick thighs, and juicy lips, does my nappy hair and African heritage make me a woman?

Does my counterparts' swinging hair, pink skin and that privileged life that only whites partake in; exclude her in being defined as a woman?

Another definition states, “Collective qualities or feminine.”

If womanhood rests in femininity, then does how well I wear my miniskirt, the way I wink or those subtle gestures we refer to as the ability to flirt, make me a woman?

If that is the case, then what about that black woman they tried to dismiss from the Olympic Race?

They tried to say she was too masculine!

That no way could a woman run like that to take the gold!

We all waited on the DNA results for the mystery to unfold.

But she was declared a woman!

Is that because she suffered humiliation and disgrace for all the world to see?

Would that mean that womanhood had nothing to do with femininity?

Would humiliation plus degrading acts equal a woman?

Is that the formula that the world seeks?

So, if I was raped at the age of three, and lived a life of promiscuity, because my virginity had been taken when I could not understand that it was a special gift to give and every man that I met took my body like it was his, would that pain make me a woman?

Further research reveals a woman as, “An adult or grown up female.”

So the years I spend on earth, no matter how productive or worthless they are, qualify me for my star on the Hollywood block of life, defining me as a woman?

Examples are thrown out everyday, but a vagina plus the equal sign does not qualify you as woman in this world today.

I’m sorry if you’re offended by the words that I say.

Or, if this is not the right format to have this discussion.

But this is place where we have gathered to celebrate womanhood and I just wanted to make sure that I understood what we define as a woman.

If I clean my house and shop real smart and do not allow my children to take part in the sinful nature of this world, but I lack a spouse and receive government assistance, would declaring,

“I AM A WOMAN,” be met with resistance?

You hear the success stories everyday:

Women who were blessed with fortune and fame,

but lived past experiences that made them feel ashamed.

Rising from their muck and mire,

they reveal how they now live lives others desire.

Their stories all vary in how they arrived.

Many talk about water baptism and a life filled with prayer,

proclaiming proudly how God got them there.

Some say they stumbled and fell and scraped their knees,

but prayed to God and he heard their pleas.

Others believed they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps,

dodging the plans of the enemy and all of his traps,

striving for education, and allowing no one to hold them back.

But I can’t take pieces and parts of this and that and force them to make a whole.

The entire story has to make sense for me to be sold.

So would that mean, a vagina, plus a heritage, that being black or white privileged, multiplied by life experience, divided by God who subtracts the scars of pain, adding in education to increase the joy life brings, equals a woman?

No! No! No! I now understand.

God uses the simple things to confuse man.

So whether I’m married or never had a man,

my race doesn't count and if I am fertile or barren isn’t equated in the amount.

The pain I endure is a responsibility we all bear.

The woman, simply defined as, SHE PUSHES!

While on my journey in life, an idea was birthed. Like many ideas, the development took place over food and wine with my girlfriends. We discovered that we could enjoy the company of food and wine cheaper if we all pitched in with bottles of wine and the host supplied the food. This developed into our “Girls Night Out.” Combined with various backgrounds and levels of education, we came together to add to our common theme of being women. From this I learned, no matter the age, income bracket, or education level, we are all still striving to be successful at being what we were created to be: women. It was obvious from this group of entertaining, charming, beautiful, and intelligent women, that we all varied in degrees and angles of what we understood a woman to be: hence, the birth of this book.