Building Womanhood
For the girls.
For building confidence with the women beside us, not behind us.
For a reminder on how it felt before the world handed us a mirror and told us that the mirror next will always be prettier.
To reminisce on a time when we’d gather on the floor and never once think about the who’s who.
To reflect on the understanding that becoming your truest, most confident self will unfold in the way you treat the women around you.
To remind you what it should feel like to be a girl.
To being a woman and surrounding yourself with those like-minded.
Growing up, society taught us that girlhood made us too fragile, too unserious, and too impermanent. They taught us that if you were better than her, you’d have a meaningful life.
But the fragility made us strong. Not being taken seriously made us truly appreciate the ones who care. The impermanence showed us the meaning of something/someone that sticks around.
Girlhood transforms us, and it began with the women — the girls — who were there, handing down experience and influencing our very mindset.
It began with the sisters you’d sit on the counter with, licking the batter out of the bowl; it began with your mother, who made the mix. It began with practicing hairstyles on your dolls to copy what your mother had done to yours. It began with the memory box, crafted with your best friends, made from a shoebox that has since upgraded but certainly stuck around. It began with admiring your mom's jewelry box, hoping one day you would possess such beautiful items. It began with the girls you’d stay up late to discuss the school drama with, the ones you’d binge-watch those music videos with, who taught you how to properly shave, the girls who took endless photos, and who always remembered your most embarrassing moments. It began with the acceptance of emotions, being heard and understood. It began with big imaginations and grand dreams.
But somewhere along the line, we were struck from that path.
Led to another, only to be told that the women in your life are your biggest competitors.
Led to believe that to be the best, to look the best, to get the best, you need to echo their every action, thought, and look.
Led to believe that being a woman is not like being a girl — that it no longer means encouragement — it is now about neutralizing.
Neutralizing yourself to fit the standard, neutralizing others to assure you’ll make the top pick list.
Escaping those thoughts will begin with the smallest everyday changes, complimenting the women you cross paths with every day — your barista, the girl shopping in the same section as you, or the girl in the club bathroom you’ve been admiring.
One small change every day builds a soft yet strong foundation.
Womanhood is built around showing support, not jealousy, meant to show authentic beauty, not trends; it's about seeing women around you for who they truly are, not what you want them to be, not what society has taught them to be.
These precious connections are the pillars holding our structures strong — being comfortable to show every version of yourself and never once doubting if you're worth it.
The deeper connections, the longer conversations, the gossip repeated as many times as necessary until the pressure is relieved.
That is when you remember that nobody stole this privilege, nobody robbed us of the connection, laughter, admiration, and friendship; someone along the way just managed to convince you that you’re better off being small, better off shrinking to their standards.
“Girl Knitting,” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (c. 1875), public domain work; image uploaded to Wikimedia Commons under “no known copyright restrictions” (original source: Flickr — Internet Archive Book Images).
