I am a WOMAN

Ok, so I'm not actually a woman. Also, this is going to be a bit more iffy than my "I am a MAN" post. However, for me it is a bit more important in that I am seeking to understand women, their identity, and their associated motivations and drivers. So again, I am going to write this as fact, but I could be wrong.

Women's identity as a woman is different compared to that of men. I am going to do a lot of comparing and contrasting. The primary difference I see is that women's identity is that it is much more existence based as apposed to action based.

Women deal with a significantly higher level of surface level judgement than men. What they where, how they do their makeup and hair. How skinny they are. The judgement (especially from other women) never stops. However, even though there is a lot of surface level judgement it does not seem to hit on fundamental female identity. It can make women feel terrible about themselves of course, but no one says you are not a "woman" because a girl wore something frumpy.

The deeper level, the identity of womanhood as it is separate from being simply female comes into play with motherhood. The ability to be a mother is completely opaque from the outside. No one can look at a woman and know based on some viewable characteristic that she is unable or unwilling to bear children. As such a woman's identity as a woman is not only somewhat biologically intrinsic, it is also relatively unquestioned. At least from external observers.

Therefore, women enjoy a certain level of security in their identity as women. If a woman has children she can go her entire life without ever really having her identity as a woman come into question. The topic just never comes up.

For women who are unable to have children or choose not to though it can be a real issue. On the upside they don't have as much risk of their womanhood being ground down by others. However, they can run into an issue of lack of empathy from mothers who do not understand their struggle. Men, whether sympathetic or not universally understand the struggle of identity.

Probably the biggest difficulty women face here though is there very likely is no clear solution to fix a lack of children. If a woman is infertile there may be no solution. If she is single, it isn't just a simple thing to find a guy and get married. If she is older she might be completely out of luck. If she is remaining childless by choice she can struggle with that decision and deal with the cognitive dissonance of her beliefs and her feelings for potentially ever. Those are all real and very difficult struggles. All of that within an environment where women's identity is poorly discussed or understood.

The second part of a woman's identity is connected to being in relationship with a man. Again, like motherhood it is more or less a true/false thing. Being in a relationship fulfills the desire brought on by the identity. This one is pretty straight forward so I won't say a lot about it. Just having a man to care for and support fulfills the need.

Putting this all together and wrapping up the MAN and WOMAN part shows me that we all have identities that we are seeking to fulfill. Each of us has different struggles and challenges. Ultimately it is very important for us to understand both what being a "man" and being a "woman" means so that we can be empathetic supporters of those around us as well as recognizing when we are feeling the repercussions of being outside of them ourselves. I hope this is helpful for both men and women and that I have accurately described the struggles each group faces.