'Strong' Woman

                                                                                   

March 8. It's International Women's Day and I struggled to construct a pithy statement that conveyed my thoughts; thoughts that had been lingering on my mind for a little over a week. In the end, I settled for this social media post which I believe captures both the mood of the day and it's essence, including all the struggles and triumphs not only of the great and known but the small and unseen.

My thoughts had been stirred by another post stating, "Behind every strong woman is a story that gave her no other choice" - on an all-female platform over which I voiced some disquiet and the reactions flowing therefrom. It makes a 'strong' statement and I intend no pun as you would soon understand. My reading was that, a woman is forced to be 'strong' only if she has no choice. Question; what is she otherwise? and does it matter that she is not 'strong'?

I had explained that though I understood that gender discrimination and patriarchy are still challenges that many women contend with and appreciate the sense of solidarity that such statements are supposed to convey; it seemed to me that the statement implied an inherent weakness of the female which was only displaced by ‘strength’ after overcoming some unusual circumstance. In my view this position does not recognize all the 'strong women' I see about me every day; women who are strong simply because they survive the drudgery of their ordinary lives; many of whom will only escape their lives after death. For me, this reality did not make them the weaker, nor did it reflect a lack of strength.

After some back and forth, it was urged on the group by one participant and supported by others that women ‘…start off as the weaker sex because of the way we’ve been socialized. We later learn skills to protect ourselves and our own and become strong(er)'. This got me thinking as I struggled to rationalize the notions of natural as against socialized weakness of the female. 

I was nurtured to be confident and independent, to have an opinion and see no difference except biological between myself and my brothers, be responsible for my actions, not expect another (a man) to carry my load. So I grew up defying, sometimes fighting extraneous expectations to exhibit tendencies supposedly more akin to females and though I caved to pressure sometimes I never departed from my true self. I started off being an ordinary girl, but grew more and more aware of the pressures to be other than myself- weaker maybe? Some say I'm a 'strong woman' (whatever that means) but I see nothing extraordinary in a woman with a worldview such as mine; even though I have come to appreciate the challenge of navigating society with preconceived labels. The idea that women start off as the weaker sex and later learn to be strong, if even theoretically defensible, was not my reality and I do not believe it is that of many females.  

But that is not to deny the realities of others. Context and environment matter. The question though is whether the weakness is inherent in the female? More importantly, what does it really mean to be a 'strong woman' with the unfortunate consequence, sometimes, of defining the strength of a woman by the popular notions of achievement, success and superior ability to overcome a major life hurdle? 

The acclaimed Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie captured this well in her 'danger of a single story' TED talk.   ‘The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story’, she said. 
That said, I would like to think that if even I was to be referred to as a ‘strong’ woman, it should not be because I overcame an unusual or dreadful situation (though I have survived a few of those), but because I live, I survive, and I thrive. 

 
I am a woman. Nothing more. The labels don't count. Never will.