Or: How it feels to be a woman in this world.
This might be hard to read. And before you turn away from that, consider sitting with the discomfort. Whether you’re a woman (or any person that is not a cis male) and know exactly how this feels, or because you’re a man and have never felt this way and feel for those who do.
A few years ago, I was going through a really hard breakup.
And even though it was hard precisely because I had finally felt truly seen for who I am, and felt held in that space, and felt safe enough to be vulnerable, and surrender to a man — I somehow let some people convince me that the reason my relationships failed was because I was too much in my masculine energy and not enough in my feminine.
And what did they mean by that? That I was too sharp, not soft enough to allow someone to come close to me, that I was too much in control and that most men didn't feel attracted by that, that I was too dominant and needed to surrender more to give a man the space to come into my life without feeling — unuseful.
And after a couple of years of trying to basically restrain and diminish myself to make a man more comfortable around me, I realised this was complete bullshit.
I was being made responsible for the fact that I, as a woman, didn't feel safe allowing someone to step in to take the responsibility of my safety and care. I didn't feel safe allowing someone to be in control over my destiny, or even my evening. I did not feel safe letting someone else make decisions for me, even though in all honesty, my femininity wanted nothing more than to bask in a space of safety held by someone else, being able to trust that I could let my guard down and stop being hypervigilant to protect myself.
How many times have you heard people say, isn't it amazing how many beautiful, capable, single women there are in the world? Perhaps the question we should be asking is —
Isn’t it amazing how many women there are in this world today who don’t feel safe to let their guard down to a man?
—
It's taken me years of therapy to realise that I haven't felt safe ever since I was a child of three. And my family and I moved around across the world so it wasn't about where I lived, either. It had everything to do with the fact that I was a girl.
My Indian parents were rather protective, which may have made me feel there was something to be protected from. And there probably was, just as there still is.
I still choose not to live in Delhi, where my family is, because I feel anxiously restricted by the need to be extra careful to remain safe as a single woman. I can't go where I want or see who I want or do what I want when I want simply because I put myself at risk by doing so.
But there's more to it than that. As I've gotten older, and have remained single, I've realised something else that bothers me — as an unmarried woman, I am not seen as an entity of my own. Somehow I am still seen as a responsibility of my family's.
It revealed itself in subtle and disturbing ways over the years. Like the fact that I didn't get my own wedding invitations from the family, like my brother did, despite the fact that I lived across the world from my parents. The fact that I myself didn't want to settle down, buy a house even, because who knows when I would meet someone and get married and be expected to fit into my husband's life. The fact that my parents would rather buy an apartment next door to theirs for me to move into permanently, than rent an airbnb for a week or two a year so they can visit me comfortably in my single person life in Europe without feeling like they're imposing on me. The alternative is, my parents never visit me, I'm just expected to visit them if I want to see them. And when my mother did visit me, solo, once every couple of years, she immediately tasked herself with rearranging my belongings in my home, because she felt it was her duty to "fix" my house as she saw fit.
I realised over the years of giving myself over to my family's need for me to fit into little boxes they had predefined that I didn't feel safe being a woman in the world in great part because being a woman meant that I wasn't allowed to be who I am — I was, and always would be, a daughter first — and an adult individual, with her own values, preferences, routines and ways of living, never.
I won't lie, I have felt angry and betrayed by my family — who raised me constantly stating that I was no different from my brother and we would always be treated equally — ever since they finally visited me, only to make no effort to actually understand my life or me from my perspective, and instead leaving me with a clear message: They feel disappointed, even despair, at the way I am living my life. They feel sorry for me. As if my life has failed.
—
Over the past year of lockdown, being on my own most of the time in my apartment in Amsterdam, having friends and colleagues dip in and out of my life with long periods of emptiness, I have started wondering why I continue to live here, far away from all family and having some severe limitations to my career options.
And being here most of the time, not traveling to India (in over 3 years) or even to London (in over a year) or New York (in over 4 years) — I forget why I choose to be here rather than anywhere else. It's easy to forget when you start taking your safety as a woman for granted that you can't do that in all those other places you've been in. I mean, it's not like I didn't go out alone at night even when I've lived in any of those places before. I did — but I was constantly hypervigilant, aware of everything happening around me, never allowing myself to get too drunk or too tired, because I was a woman and I had to be careful.
And it's when a woman got kidnapped and murdered in London recently — or a bunch of Asian women got shot down in the US because a so-called “sex addict” was “trying to eliminate temptation” (YUCK!) — I remembered why I still live here, in Amsterdam. Because it afforded me the best option I've found so far to live and be free as a single woman. And that's not to say that I haven't been harassed in Amsterdam, either. It definitely happens here too — I just feel less vulnerable here, perhaps partly because it's so small, or because the Dutch are rather proud of having a culture of emancipated women.
And yet, talking to single or divorced women or mothers here in the Netherlands, even those who grew up in the Dutch culture, it becomes unavoidably obvious that the problems are here too. Women are treated unfairly, judged, called out for being inadequate, for being too sexual, for being too masculine, for not fitting into the ideal of a well-behaved woman in a civilised society.
As my Dutch (guy) friend pointed out, a man is never called “independent”. He’s just a man.
Or at worst, a bachelor. Being “independent” is reserved for women. Being independent is just another way of saying that a woman is emancipated, that she doesn’t belong to anyone. Because that's not a given, that's an achievement if you're a woman.
Finally it started to become clearer than ever, that no matter where we go, we women are not seen as people, with our own minds and hearts and desires and ambitions. We are in fact seen as property. As walking wombs. As boobs and asses. As bimbos or assets. To be conquered, traded, protected, claimed. As wives and mothers and daughters. Even as nothing more than sources of male satisfaction.
If we are too masculine, we won't find the man we want in our lives. If we are too feminine, we won't have the career we want in a competitive world. If we are too strong, we are unattractive and asexual. And if we are too weak, then we shouldn't be surprised when a man decides to take advantage of us, because that's what a woman's fate is.
The only reason that women can't have it all is because they are women. Because they don't own their own lives or their own bodies. Because they have to play the roles for other people before they get to do what they want for themselves, and failing to do so means they've failed at being women.
So when I say that I don’t feel safe being a woman in the world, I’m not just talking about walking around late at night.
I'm talking about being myself, strong, soft, dominant, submissive, loving, angry, generous, boundaried, relaxed, strict, creative, business-like, bossy, accepting, in control, yielding. I don't feel safe being all the things that I am, because the rules are different for me as a woman. I don't get to be me. First, I've got to meet the qualifications of being a woman. And part of that means that I have to be willing to let someone else take care of me. My family. My husband. My brother. My boyfriend. A man.
Because a proper woman also is weak and defenseless and yielding, that's what it means to be in your feminine energy, that's what it means to surrender and be loving — and be loved for being a woman.
To have no fences and guards of your own because you're supposed to let them take care of you.
But how can I drop my guard to let someone else take care of me when I don’t even feel safe to be me in this world?
How can I drop my guard when I haven't seen any proof that I'll be taken care of and still be allowed to be me, to be free and express myself as a living breathing being?
How can I drop my guard when no one has ever actually taken care of me in a reliable consistent way that allows me to feel safe and trust?
I don't let my guard down so easy because I don't have enough experiences telling me that I'll be safe if I do. I don't know in my bones that I'll be accepted, that I'll be loved and admired, that someone will be there with me if I show what I'm really made of.
Because my soul is encased in the body and wrapping of a woman — like a bird inside a cage. My life isn't my own, my voice isn't my own, it doesn't matter if I'm free thinking or even enlightened — I will and always will be a woman first.
Breasts and ass and a womb and a vagina and wrong if I am strong and asking for it if I’m not.
—
I don't feel safe being a woman in this world. And that's not on me. That's not on my body. That's not on my vagina. Me acting masculine isn't about me not being feminine. It's about this world not protecting me. It's about this world not seeing me -- and only seeing the body I'm in.
It's on this world that I was born into that has told me even before I was out of my mother's womb that I am not safe, because I too have a womb.
And that womb is the only thing about me worth anything. So I better keep it safe, even if it means risking the rest of my life.
If you want me to surrender to another, if you really want to take the responsibility of taking care of me, here's what you can do for me:
Make me a world in which I can be safe as a woman. Make me a world in which my body isn't a liability. Make me a world in which I am me, and not just a woman.
Make me a world that accepts me as me, first. And as a womb, only when I say so, and not a moment sooner.
Make me a world in which I feel safe being. Not as a woman, but as me.
Then I'll know you can actually take care of me and I can finally drop my guard.
Until then, don't tell me to be more feminine. Don't tell me to be softer or more yielding. Don't tell me how to be more attractive. Don't tell me how to invite love into my life.
And most of all, don't tell me how to be a woman.
Take a good look around at this world that says its wants to take care of me instead of admitting that it wants to own me. To impose on me. To claim my life as a conduit.
Take an honest look at yourself in the mirror and the role you play in creating these demands on my person. On creating this world that we live in. No matter if you're man or woman.
I want to drop my guard, but I'm looking out for myself. The bird inside the cage that won't stop singing with all its heart even if its wings are useless.
It's not on me that I don't feel safe being a woman in this world.