I Don’t Hate Being A Woman, I Hate What Society Has Made It Mean To Be A Woman

I’ve been reconciling with the violation that has left me seeking to deny my femininity and womanhood

CW: sexual assault.

Photo by Alvin Balemesa on Unsplash

I don’t hate being a woman. Especially as I understand that there is no single definition of “woman”. Gender is a social construct. You are free to perform your gender in whatever way you choose.

But it is a social construct dictated by our biology. So for centuries, being born female or male has been loaded with meaning, rules and expectations as defined by a traumatised society. Under the ruling of wounded masculine energy that is responsible for patriarchy and colonialism, gender has been warped and twisted and we have been suffering under it.

So lately I’ve been reflecting on why I spent decades at war with my femininity.

I have hated and denied my femininity and womanhood because I was born and raised as a girl in a society and culture that has made my gender and ethnicity mean I must be marked as inferior and subservient.

In post-colonial African culture, being born a woman has meant being born less than a man. So African women are…