The Performance of 'Womanhood'

CN: Gender Feels, Self-Harm, Body Mutilation, Menstruation

Also to note, these feelings are towards cisgendered, menstruating women

I was reading a post on one of my witchcentric subreddits about a mom who had (with her daughter's enthusiastic permission) thrown a 'red tent' party when the daughter started her first period. It was carefully done as a way not to tell the girl "you are a woman now and you must now bear responsibility and caution," but as a celebration of change and the growth bodies go through. A way to break the stigma surrounding menstruation.

 

It was lovely and wonderful.

 

And it made me feel so Othered.

 

I started thinking about my own experiences with menstruation. The shame. The trauma. How I don't think I've ever had an "okay" period.

 

Every time it happens, I want it to stop Stop STOP.

 

I feel so disconnected from my body. I feel like I've lost control of myself. I want to rip myself open and claw my uterus out. I want to mutilate my body so I don't have to deal with it.

 

Having highly irregular periods was a blessing for so long. I could go a whole year with maybe a week or two of spotting the whole time and it was glorious.

 

I have never been able to embrace my menstrual cycle as I was expected to. I resented being told that I was A Woman who now bore the power to grow a child and this meant that I must Protect My Virtue from men at all costs. I could not let these men see that I was Growing Into a Woman. I must hide myself away. I must cover myself.

 

Don't sit like that.

Don't say these things.

Don't let them know that you are Changed.

 

Don't

Don't

Don't

 

All these rules. All these expectations.

 

It makes it seem (from the perspective of a white person in the Midwest) that 'being a woman' has this almost mystical aura to it. It is a ritual to perform. A carefully cultivated one.

 

I did not choose to be a woman, yet I was (and still am since I'm not really out to my family) expected to perform 'womanhood.' Specifically cisgendered, heterosexual 'womanhood.'

 

I'm expected to want to have children.

 

I'm expected to Find A Man At All Costs then spend the rest of my life resenting and complaining about this Man.

 

I'm expected to give up dreams and ambitions and any sense of 'self' to care for these children and this man. I must not only work and bring in money, but also do the cooking and cleaning and child rearing. All with a smile on my face.

 

Isn't it great to be this vision of 'woman' we have forced upon you?

 

Women around me try to find common ground with me. They perceive me not as I am, but as they expect me to be. They share their stories and expect me to reciprocate my own. If I am to be included I must perform their vision of womanhood perfectly.

 

Even well-intentioned cis women outside of this vision make me feel like there's something inherently wrong with me. They still expect me to relate to their experiences of being a woman and when I don't, I'm pushed out yet again.

 

I'm constantly on the outside staring in, staring in horror, and in a warped sense of longing. Oh, to be one of them! To be embraced and included!

 

It's given me such a twisted sense of envy sometimes.

 

I'm fighting against it. And I'm fighting to be perceived as me. I am not 'woman.'

 

My femininity is not a woman's femininity. My femininity is my own.

 

I am nonbinary and I'm tired of being told I'm not.