Coming of age in the midst of the beginning of the Women’s Liberation Movement led me to question what I wanted as a woman, long before I was one, felt like one, or even considered whether I was willing to be one, or wanted to be one in the traditional sense.
"Women’s Lib" led me to assess what I wanted, or what women ought to want, before I even wanted much. I grew up in a pack of boys, one of five siblings, the middle child, oldest girl. Mostly I wanted to like my brothers and do what they did, have the power and independence they had. I followed my brothers, learned to wrestle, run, jump and climb things. I was physically fit and active and preferred to be outside. I also preferred my brothers’ chores: mowing the lawn or trimming plants in the yard. and piling leaves or branches, versus my weekly chores, wiping counters, sweeping and mopping floors or scrubbing the bathroom which took a full hour, and included wiping down the piss splattered walls and a smelly toilet.
I was raised to not want; nor ask, for anything, even protection. From experience I learned my needs and desires were insignificant, likely to be overlooked, skipped, and simply unknown. Within the constant chaotic commotion in our home, my most prominent practice was coping. I shrank back, felt shy, and became passive in order to be more peaceful. I obeyed. I did what was expected of me in order to minimize physical abuse against me and deescalate turmoil. At some point I came to believe my feminine nature was to acquiesce. To be fluid, flexible, easy going, and unattached to outcome.
So the mere idea that women were questioning what they wanted and whether they would keep doing what was expected of them at a point when I was not allowed to question any authority above me, led me to wonder how they came be so bold; to have any desires or preferences, as well as the strength and fervor to stand strong for what they believed was more fair, right and good, or at least better than some status quo that apparently felt demeaning to a lot of women. Well, enough that many were attempting to put an end to someone other then themselves deciding for them what they get to do.
So what first scared me, as I witnessed my own mother stepping outside her role as a mother and a homemaking wife, I also felt invigorated by women dreaming into and creating more fulfilling lives than simply filling an expected role. However, I also had no idea where I fit in the spectrum of what woman do – that was suddenly a lot wider than I thought it would ever be.
And I had no idea how suppressed and oppressed women were, nor would still be many, many years later. I was not angry then. I was too young to be upset about the roles. And I saw quite young that I did not want to simply do or not do the opposite role to just be adverse. I knew it would be best if all women had the option and could make their decision based on their own interests and dedications, either to raising kids and care for family, or become a professional business person, doing research or inventing something.
In 1968, I turned ten. For a few years at that time, all I wanted was a bra to hold back or flatten the tiny extremely tender breast buds sprouting on my chest. I tried to hide them by wearing two shirts, a boys T-Shirt and flannel plaid shirt. I rolled my shoulders forward so the fabric would hang more forward than my small protrusions. I did not want them visible for getting teased when they showed. I also wanted to protect them because they seemed to be magnets to hard smacks during disruptions and tussles, leaving me in tears every time they got hit. My mother was passionately against getting a bra for me. Women were burning them to display their emancipation. I wonder now, if she simply feared I only wanted one so I could burn it. In any case I eventually purchased my own with my babysitting money.
At eleven my menses began mid-morning on a very windy fall day. A day I had mistakenly worn a skirt, a skirt my mother insisted I wear (to break my habit of dressing like a boy in my brothers outgrown clothes). The skirt was a light weight dark green cotton skirt, with enough gathers that it could easily catch the wind and lift completely, showing everything I preferred to hide. That day was the second day of seventh grade in a new school, a junior high school, where the most relentless teasing takes place and kids are not inclined to give anyone slack for vulnerabilities nor simply being a human animal who must tend to human functions like bleeding all over white, thigh length lacy pettipants – that I wore under skirts because I felt prudish and never wanted my bare thighs nor underwear to show to anyone.
I discovered trying to keep a skirt from blowing and revealing unders was a challenge that day, while carrying a heavy load of new books. Trying to always have one arm free and vigilant, ready to swoop down and keep my flying skirt from turning up like an inverted umbrella. I thought I was trying to hide my underclothes... not the fact that I become a woman on the second day seventh grade.
Periods are notoriously unpredictable especially the first time when girls have no reference points to the warnings or sensations or likely timing. So imagine my surprise; in the bathroom between classes during a five minute break time, I discover not just a little spot of blood leaking through my panties to the crotch of my pettipants where someone might not even see it if my skirt went up, instead, nearly all my pettipants were bright red, it had soaked upward half way up my butt, and to my belly on the front, and then all the way down the lace covered leg part, soaking all but the far outside of the lacy legs. That was a lot of blood. Unexpected very liquid blood suddenly flowing blood, that gets all over everything! And I did not even feel exiting my body!
I knew I could not go through the rest of the day like that; I knew I had to rinse these out my under garments before the blood dried and stained them forever. Being the only one in the bathroom at that time, I simply knew what had to happen. I did not think of the challenge, washing them could become.
I stepped out of my bloody unders and walked out of the stall to rinse them in the sink. Just about the time the dissolved blood filled the whole sink, making it look like it was a sink full of blood, a few girls began to enter and instantly scream in horror, turn, and immediately run out with their hands covering their mouths. Which led to an exponential increasing number of new girls entering the bathroom in droves screaming and running out.
In the short amount of time that it took before the brilliant red blood from my under cloths was rinsed away down the drain as to not be so shocking, twenty to thirty girls had seen me with my hands in a sink full of blood. Word got around fast and eventually more daring girls eventually came in and stayed longer to figure out that no, I was not cut, nor injured, and I did not kill anything. Instead I had an embarrassing female accident which was still grounds for endless ridicule.
That moment of my becoming a woman, was a traumatic turning point, one I will never forget. It was traumatic due to other girls reactions, their unnerved incessant screaming. It was the day my body showed proof I could conceive, proof that I am was not a girl-ish boy. I was proud I had the ability and wherewith all to address the issues my maturing body produced, yet I also mourned the loss of the possibility that I could continue my hopes that I would discover I was a unique version of a boy, or some suspended in between who never became a full blown woman, and remained free to be more like a boy. That day, I lost my boyhood... clearly, sadly, I would turn into a woman.
This awareness led to endless internal inquiry: what does it mean to be a woman, and what do I want it to mean. Where is my power? How do I express it? How do I remain strong, and become a woman when I associate strength with masculinity? And the endless sad inquiry: what do I have to do to be loved and accepted? How do I retain my feminine gentle softness and still take a stand in protection of myself and others. It seemed challenging to come fully into my feminine power and not be associated with "Man-hating Women's Libbers".
Over the years I have continued to explore the dance of feminine nature, how it happens in me and many others. I celebrate her presence and unfolding. I have learned to love and honor the value of feminine nature expressed in all women. Her message is valuable, her voice is needed, for survival and healing. I will speak and share from what I know and invite others to write what they know and feel inclined to share as well, in hopes that in sharing, it will help us all. In Peace. Yin At Heart. Erin
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