Essay 49
Essay 49
Essay 49
Essay 49
Womanhood is revealed to you slowly
Womanhood is revealed to you slowly
Womanhood is revealed to you slowly
Womanhood is revealed to you slowly
9 Mar 2025
9 Mar 2025
9 Mar 2025
9 Mar 2025
5 min
5 min
5 min
5 min
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There is popular culture around what being a woman is. Which is all very chic and glamorous. If you are a man, I wouldn’t blame you if you think being a woman involves a lot of fashion, bags, home decor and rejecting boys. I thought that too. Till you are 30, married, a mother, or menopausal - there are secrets about womanhood that are withheld from you. Only to be found in the deep alleyways of a subreddit. Or if you are unlucky to be disturbingly revealed by your mother to you when the time comes.
My mother and I often chatted before I went to sleep when I was young. One day, maybe when I was 10, I remember asking her a question that had been lingering in my mind. I knew women gave birth to babies, my mother alluded to it every time I was being disrespectful. But where did the babies come out of? I could not solve this mystery myself and did not have access to the internet yet. My mother laughed. ‘Do you really want to know?’ I said yes, innocently, this question merely a geometric puzzle in my mind. ‘The vagina.’ She said in my mother tongue. ‘That is impossible. Don’t they cut it out of the stomach?’ I offered a solution, convinced my mother was lying. ‘Yes, sometimes. But in most cases, the vagina.’ I stayed awake a long time that night.
Around the same age, girls were secretly walking out in between classes. There was blood involved. My mother had explained this phenomenon to me earlier. But the idea of blood oozing monthly out of you somehow seemed less scary than squeezing a baby out. They later explained it all in a sex-ed class. They took the boys into another classroom and I hoped they were learning about some horrors of their own. But turns out they were also learning about our horrors.
When they first introduce the period to you, they explain it mechanically. Somehow, blood shows up in your underwear every month. It is only when you are 27 and wondering why you fought with your colleague, boyfriend, mother again three days before your period and you google it, do you learn about hormones. You make a mental note to never do anything that requires too much emotional fortitude, 3 days before your period. And your life improves a little bit.
Millennial women grew up in a world which insisted that we could demand equality. We were owed it. We could dream, work, earn, fuck like men. Everyone insisted the biological clock was mythical. A story created to inhibit our free spirits and keep us from the joys of employment. So we worked hard and didn't let stray comments and mild sexism faze us. We deserved better men so we waited for the right person. We didn’t think we would want children, it felt like society wanted them and we were just participating.
But then we turned 30. And looks like a massive diversion is ahead. The biological clock which was apparently a myth, is back. We all need our fertility tested and our eggs frozen. Turns out when you are in love with a stable partner, you may want a child. The joys of employment are exaggerated at best and non-existent at worst. I tried googling about child-birth in the hope of relieving myself of my childhood memories and now I have even scarier stories from the internet.
There is popular culture around what being a woman is. Which is all very chic and glamorous. If you are a man, I wouldn’t blame you if you think being a woman involves a lot of fashion, bags, home decor and rejecting boys. I thought that too. Till you are 30, married, a mother, or menopausal - there are secrets about womanhood that are withheld from you. Only to be found in the deep alleyways of a subreddit. Or if you are unlucky to be disturbingly revealed by your mother to you when the time comes.
My mother and I often chatted before I went to sleep when I was young. One day, maybe when I was 10, I remember asking her a question that had been lingering in my mind. I knew women gave birth to babies, my mother alluded to it every time I was being disrespectful. But where did the babies come out of? I could not solve this mystery myself and did not have access to the internet yet. My mother laughed. ‘Do you really want to know?’ I said yes, innocently, this question merely a geometric puzzle in my mind. ‘The vagina.’ She said in my mother tongue. ‘That is impossible. Don’t they cut it out of the stomach?’ I offered a solution, convinced my mother was lying. ‘Yes, sometimes. But in most cases, the vagina.’ I stayed awake a long time that night.
Around the same age, girls were secretly walking out in between classes. There was blood involved. My mother had explained this phenomenon to me earlier. But the idea of blood oozing monthly out of you somehow seemed less scary than squeezing a baby out. They later explained it all in a sex-ed class. They took the boys into another classroom and I hoped they were learning about some horrors of their own. But turns out they were also learning about our horrors.
When they first introduce the period to you, they explain it mechanically. Somehow, blood shows up in your underwear every month. It is only when you are 27 and wondering why you fought with your colleague, boyfriend, mother again three days before your period and you google it, do you learn about hormones. You make a mental note to never do anything that requires too much emotional fortitude, 3 days before your period. And your life improves a little bit.
Millennial women grew up in a world which insisted that we could demand equality. We were owed it. We could dream, work, earn, fuck like men. Everyone insisted the biological clock was mythical. A story created to inhibit our free spirits and keep us from the joys of employment. So we worked hard and didn't let stray comments and mild sexism faze us. We deserved better men so we waited for the right person. We didn’t think we would want children, it felt like society wanted them and we were just participating.
But then we turned 30. And looks like a massive diversion is ahead. The biological clock which was apparently a myth, is back. We all need our fertility tested and our eggs frozen. Turns out when you are in love with a stable partner, you may want a child. The joys of employment are exaggerated at best and non-existent at worst. I tried googling about child-birth in the hope of relieving myself of my childhood memories and now I have even scarier stories from the internet.
There is popular culture around what being a woman is. Which is all very chic and glamorous. If you are a man, I wouldn’t blame you if you think being a woman involves a lot of fashion, bags, home decor and rejecting boys. I thought that too. Till you are 30, married, a mother, or menopausal - there are secrets about womanhood that are withheld from you. Only to be found in the deep alleyways of a subreddit. Or if you are unlucky to be disturbingly revealed by your mother to you when the time comes.
My mother and I often chatted before I went to sleep when I was young. One day, maybe when I was 10, I remember asking her a question that had been lingering in my mind. I knew women gave birth to babies, my mother alluded to it every time I was being disrespectful. But where did the babies come out of? I could not solve this mystery myself and did not have access to the internet yet. My mother laughed. ‘Do you really want to know?’ I said yes, innocently, this question merely a geometric puzzle in my mind. ‘The vagina.’ She said in my mother tongue. ‘That is impossible. Don’t they cut it out of the stomach?’ I offered a solution, convinced my mother was lying. ‘Yes, sometimes. But in most cases, the vagina.’ I stayed awake a long time that night.
Around the same age, girls were secretly walking out in between classes. There was blood involved. My mother had explained this phenomenon to me earlier. But the idea of blood oozing monthly out of you somehow seemed less scary than squeezing a baby out. They later explained it all in a sex-ed class. They took the boys into another classroom and I hoped they were learning about some horrors of their own. But turns out they were also learning about our horrors.
When they first introduce the period to you, they explain it mechanically. Somehow, blood shows up in your underwear every month. It is only when you are 27 and wondering why you fought with your colleague, boyfriend, mother again three days before your period and you google it, do you learn about hormones. You make a mental note to never do anything that requires too much emotional fortitude, 3 days before your period. And your life improves a little bit.
Millennial women grew up in a world which insisted that we could demand equality. We were owed it. We could dream, work, earn, fuck like men. Everyone insisted the biological clock was mythical. A story created to inhibit our free spirits and keep us from the joys of employment. So we worked hard and didn't let stray comments and mild sexism faze us. We deserved better men so we waited for the right person. We didn’t think we would want children, it felt like society wanted them and we were just participating.
But then we turned 30. And looks like a massive diversion is ahead. The biological clock which was apparently a myth, is back. We all need our fertility tested and our eggs frozen. Turns out when you are in love with a stable partner, you may want a child. The joys of employment are exaggerated at best and non-existent at worst. I tried googling about child-birth in the hope of relieving myself of my childhood memories and now I have even scarier stories from the internet.
Recently, I was talking to my mother about her diabetes, discussing diet and exercise when it struck me that I didn’t know when she got it in the first place. “10 years back, when I went through menopause I would have fainting spells. When I went to the doctor, she said it was diabetes.” My mother lost significant weight in that period too and celebrated it as women do every time the number on the scale drops irrespective of what it represents. I now know that in my mother’s case, it represented a 10% drop in muscle mass in one year. I now remember visuals of her throwing up or standing in front of an open fridge trying to cool herself down.
I was indifferent then, unaware that I was staring at my own fate, 30 years later.
Recently, I was talking to my mother about her diabetes, discussing diet and exercise when it struck me that I didn’t know when she got it in the first place. “10 years back, when I went through menopause I would have fainting spells. When I went to the doctor, she said it was diabetes.” My mother lost significant weight in that period too and celebrated it as women do every time the number on the scale drops irrespective of what it represents. I now know that in my mother’s case, it represented a 10% drop in muscle mass in one year. I now remember visuals of her throwing up or standing in front of an open fridge trying to cool herself down.
I was indifferent then, unaware that I was staring at my own fate, 30 years later.
Recently, I was talking to my mother about her diabetes, discussing diet and exercise when it struck me that I didn’t know when she got it in the first place. “10 years back, when I went through menopause I would have fainting spells. When I went to the doctor, she said it was diabetes.” My mother lost significant weight in that period too and celebrated it as women do every time the number on the scale drops irrespective of what it represents. I now know that in my mother’s case, it represented a 10% drop in muscle mass in one year. I now remember visuals of her throwing up or standing in front of an open fridge trying to cool herself down.
I was indifferent then, unaware that I was staring at my own fate, 30 years later.
Recently, I was talking to my mother about her diabetes, discussing diet and exercise when it struck me that I didn’t know when she got it in the first place. “10 years back, when I went through menopause I would have fainting spells. When I went to the doctor, she said it was diabetes.” My mother lost significant weight in that period too and celebrated it as women do every time the number on the scale drops irrespective of what it represents. I now know that in my mother’s case, it represented a 10% drop in muscle mass in one year. I now remember visuals of her throwing up or standing in front of an open fridge trying to cool herself down.
I was indifferent then, unaware that I was staring at my own fate, 30 years later.
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It will be a reminder to stop scrolling and read something fun.
FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT IF YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS OR JUST WANT TO SAY HI.
Design/dev by @itsiddharth
Get a mail everytime a post goes up.
It will be a reminder to stop scrolling and read something fun.
FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT IF YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS OR JUST WANT TO SAY HI.
Design/dev by @itsiddharth
Get a mail everytime a post goes up.
It will be a reminder to stop scrolling and read something fun.
FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT IF YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS OR JUST WANT TO SAY HI.
Design/dev by @itsiddharth