{"id":2879,"date":"2014-10-12T15:23:58","date_gmt":"2014-10-12T15:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/?p=2879"},"modified":"2014-10-12T15:37:11","modified_gmt":"2014-10-12T15:37:11","slug":"celebrating-being-a-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/celebrating-being-a-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Being a Woman."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"284651694_69e63b374d_o<\/a><\/h3>\n

I\u2019m sitting here listening to the sounds of my husband giving his mini-me a bath—our daughter.<\/h3>\n

I often \u201cjoke\u201d that looking at her must be like looking into a mirror for him.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a constant reminder to me that we are people, first and foremost, before we are men and women.<\/p>\n

That said, we live in a world of gender inequality and gender stereotyping and I, for one, am a huge proponent of advocating that we look beyond gender and into the hearts, souls and minds of the individual.<\/p>\n

Still, I\u2019m a woman<\/a>\u2014and I\u2019m proud to be one.<\/h4>\n

While I\u2019m fully aware that not all little girls want to wear dresses (I didn\u2019t as a child), I\u2019m equally more than aware that some do (my husband\u2019s mini-me\u2014my daughter\u2014for example).<\/p>\n

So, the thing is, I\u2019m going to also be a proponent for being allowed to be proud that I\u2019m a woman and of everything that this means to me, even if I\u2019m also suggesting that what being a woman means to me is, and should be, vastly different than what it is for someone else.<\/p>\n

And I want to be able to loudly proclaim my pride about both my femininity and the strength and ferocity that I equate this gleaming title with.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a woman. I love tall boots and tight jeans.<\/p>\n

I love long hair blowing in the wind and short hair, freshly chopped off.<\/p>\n

I love both my small breasts and my swollen, pregnant ones.<\/h4>\n

I love wearing my husband\u2019s shirts and form-flattering dresses.<\/p>\n

I love shiny rings and sweaty skin.<\/p>\n

I love reading a book and then watching the movie.<\/p>\n

I love my aggressive attitude and my tender heart.<\/p>\n

I love throaty, head-tilted-back laughs and seductress glances that come from the pit of my stomach.<\/p>\n

I love a new bra and a worn-in t-shirt.<\/p>\n

I love gold-flecked lipgloss and four coats of black mascara.<\/p>\n

I love fresh-faced mornings in a sexy cotton robe and talks that could go on for hours.<\/p>\n

I love sex. I love my body (after a long time of hating it and teaching myself how to love it).<\/h4>\n

I love that my body is preparing to give birth and the way my skin hangs differently from having my first child.<\/p>\n

I love my independent spirit.<\/p>\n

I love the way writing makes me come alive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I love my bare nails and believe that nothing can have too much glitter.<\/p>\n

I love raunchy humor and subtle smiles.<\/p>\n

I love perfectly placed exclamation points and unexpectedly blunt periods.<\/h4>\n

I love everything about being a woman and, most of all, I love that female readers will probably bombard this post with raging comments that this is not a woman, to them, at all\u2014because we are all unique and self-defined.<\/p>\n

But, I\u2019m a woman.<\/em><\/p>\n

And I love my gender, my sexuality, my femininity and my rebelliousness against it too<\/a>\u2014and I want to celebrate these things just like we want to celebrate other facets of self-identity that are less categorical and likely to offend.<\/p>\n

Yet being a woman isn\u2019t something that\u2019s black and white.<\/h4>\n

Take this story about Indian sprinter Dutee Chand.<\/a><\/p>\n

Chand is being told she can no longer compete as a woman because her testosterone levels tested too high.<\/p>\n

Yet Chand is a woman. She celebrates being a woman.<\/em><\/p>\n

Actually, she\u2019s currently fighting this definition that just because her body looks stereotypically different than a \u201cwoman\u2019s\u201d and because her naturally occurring testosterone levels are supposedly not low enough to be a woman, that she is still a woman and deserves to compete as one.<\/p>\n

Her options, if she wants to compete under current athletic regulations: take drugs or have surgery to suppress the testosterone that her own body makes.<\/em><\/p>\n

So, yeah, being a woman isn\u2019t black and white.<\/p>\n

Some women prefer white cotton panties while others prefer red lace (and some go commando).<\/p>\n

Some of us drink our coffee black and some with milk (and others not at all),<\/p>\n

But being a woman is something to be proud of; it\u2019s something to be so proud of that we refuse to let others define what being a woman should mean to us\u2014and what it shouldn\u2019t.<\/h4>\n

So I\u2019ll slip on my new black booties and my snug jeans. I\u2019ll rub my hands over my rounding belly that houses a growing child for possibly a few more days.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ll celebrate being a woman.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll howl it. I\u2019ll roar it. <\/a>I\u2019ll whisper it. (Depending upon my mood.)<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ll apologize to no one for my pride.<\/p>\n

Because I\u2019m a woman.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m celebrating what that means to me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo: Flickr\/Ton Haex<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m sitting here listening to the sounds of my husband giving his mini-me a bath—our daughter. I often \u201cjoke\u201d that looking at her must be like looking into a mirror for him. It\u2019s a...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,3],"tags":[557,209,558,559,99],"class_list":["post-2879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-happenings","category-kick-a-women","tag-dutee-chand","tag-femininity","tag-identity","tag-testosterone","tag-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/284651694_69e63b374d_o-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4dYEp-Kr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2879"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2885,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2879\/revisions\/2885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferswhite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}