I love being a woman. I love feeling like a princess in a flowery pink dress and high heels that click with each step I take. I love wearing light, shimmery eyeshadow that makes my eyes sparkle. I love that almost everything I own is pink. I love that flowers exist and that they brighten a room and they’re delicate and smell sweet.
I love embracing my femininity, and what I’ve learned through every chapter of my life is that I feel more confident the more I let my womanhood shine. Womanhood is not necessarily defined by flowers and dresses and pink, but those make me feel confident in my own skin, and they’re naturally what I love and gravitate towards.
For a while I thought that embracing my femininity meant watering down who I am and what I want and how to communicate what’s best for me. I thought it meant I had to be silent, but I’ve learned that communicating desires and boundaries do not equal aggressive behavior or a lack of personal value; rather communicating those things make you human, they reveal that you know what you deserve and you know your worth.
Embracing femininity does not correspond to needing to suppress myself from expressing how I feel to those I wish to pursue or making my needs and expectations known to those already in my life. It simply means I can do and ask for the same things as men, in an elegant composure, in a manner that reflects the confidence in what I know I deserve out of each kind of relationship, and in a way that allows others to know that although I’m delicate and oftentimes emotional, I’m not stupid or delusional. Having goals, dreams, desires, and standards are human, and no woman needs to feel inferior for sharing that with others.
The moment we stop circulating around toxic beliefs that women must remain silent and please others through their submission, holding back their true feelings, is the moment women are who God called them to be, fierce but gentle, calm but assertive. The moment we stop categorizing the desire for love as desperate and needy, is the moment we recognize the beauty of feminine nature seeking to cultivate warmth and hope.
A woman does not have to feel ashamed for facing rejection, because in order to be rejected she would have had to put herself in the position to hear someone tell her ‘no,’ and that takes courage and strength and willingness to step into the unknown.
A woman can be all the things a man can be without diminishing herself. She can do her hair and makeup however she likes and wear pink and enjoy taking pictures of flowers, all while confessing her love and letting herself cry and making it clear that she respects herself enough to ask for her needs to be met, and she was born to not sit back and wait for things to happen or to come to her, but that she can be both beautiful and bold.
Embracing my femininity means I don’t have to bite back in an effort to seek revenge or prove someone wrong when things don’t go my way. I can simply keep loving flowers and enhancing the richness that I find in creating a beautiful life, one where I love to write poetry about love and dress in clothes that make me happy and sing along to Taylor Swift in the car.
Beautiful and bold can coexist. Fearless and emotional can intertwine. Femininity means being who I am unapologetically, and responding to each setback, failure, step forward, and achievement with grace and compassion. Femininity means sharing what I believe and respecting others in their disagreement. Femininity means confidence without arrogance, courage in the face of fear, and elegance in predicaments. Femininity does not make crying weak or negative emotions wrong, it simply means I’m human and that a broken heart is a sign of being tender enough to fall in love.
Embracing femininity inclines me to love others more, to love the woman I’ve become, and to recognize the growth that comes with time. Just like a delicate flower whose petals open up and shine, to me being a woman means embodying my soft qualities, expressing where my heart is at, and responding to others with love, gentleness, and grace.
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