Imagine your high school teacher telling you that your outfit is too distracting for the boys in class. Picture your college professor scribbling “blonde” next to your name on the roster to remember who you are. Flashback to that one audition in LA when you were just 18, a size 2, and they told you, “Well, you’re definitely plus-size.”
Then there’s that moment when you politely turn down a guy’s invitation to “get out of here” after he buys you a drink, and he retaliates by calling you a “tease” or a “dumb bimbo,” as if a $6 cocktail gives him a claim on your body. Or how about when you feign wearing a wedding ring or say you’re waiting for someone just to get a persistent creep at the bar to back off, because apparently, being owned by another man is the only way to communicate that you’re not interested.
Let’s not forget the unsettling feeling when you find yourself alone in an elevator and it stops to let in a man you don’t know. Your breath instinctively catches as you tense up, praying he doesn’t follow you off at your floor. Or that time you discreetly hide the cover of a book by your favorite female comedian because you’d rather not hear another stranger claim “women just aren’t funny.”
Early in your career, your boss decides that promoting you—his assistant—is a “waste of a promotion,” handing the nod to a younger male colleague who only has a BA while you’ve earned both a BA and an MA. And when he says you remind him of his daughter, it feels less like a compliment and more like a condescending pat on the head.
In meetings, you sit quietly as a male colleague, who’s two levels above you, explains the project that you spent two years developing. Meanwhile, you keep getting overlooked for promotions while your male peers move up the ladder effortlessly. When you’re asked to mentor a man at your level instead of being given the chance to advance in your own career, you can’t help but think it’s time to flip the script.
Returning to work just ten weeks after giving birth, you’re exhausted and leaking milk, all because the family needs that paycheck. You take international calls while pumping in a dark room, hoping no one notices the background noise. And when you find yourself pumping in an airport bathroom, tears streaming down your face as you dump precious breast milk down the drain, it’s heart-wrenching.
Then there’s the time you find yourself across from a CEO who criticizes a successful woman for having two nannies, while he has a stay-at-home wife and a nanny too. You nod along, smiling faintly, to keep the peace. You spend time advocating for your basic rights to make your own healthcare decisions, only to have men—politicians, doctors, partners—think they can dictate what you can do with your own body.
You even find yourself delaying getting your birth control due to the cost, and the pharmacist tells you, condescendingly, that “it’s not as expensive as a baby.” But then, when the Affordable Care Act kicks in and you realize you’ll save $60 a month on your necessary birth control, you can’t help but jump for joy. Yet, insurance still tries to deny you a mammogram because you’re “too young,” despite your medical history.
This is the reality of being a mother, a daughter, a wife, a girl. This is the experience of being a woman.
If you’re interested in learning more about home insemination, check out this post on intracervical insemination, and for those navigating the fertility journey, Make a Mom offers valuable insights. For a deeper understanding of the topic, Wikipedia provides an excellent resource on artificial insemination.
Summary
This article paints a vivid picture of the challenges faced by women in a patriarchal society, from discrimination in education and the workplace to navigating personal and healthcare decisions. It emphasizes the systemic issues women contend with daily, highlighting the need for change and empowerment.