Written by: Katyayani Mishra
When I watched Barbie for the first time, I didn’t understand the message, except for the famous monologue that the movie presented to us. I almost fell asleep while watching it because I couldn’t understand the theme of it until recently, when I rewatched it, and I cried because the film beautifully portrayed what it really feels like to be a woman. Growing up, I have always felt insecure about my looks because I physically matured at a young age, when I was 9 years old. I still remember the incident that made me immediately conscious of how I was looking and growing up. I was in the school washroom, changing for a practice, and one of the girls pointed out my armpit hair. That very moment, I suddenly became conscious, and I realised how several other girls growing up would have felt the same. When I first had my menstrual cycle, I remember my body changing suddenly. I had grown hips, an almost fully formed chest, massive body hair and small breakouts of acne. When several people point out your body hair, weight, skin colour, you become conscious, you feel insecure, and you begin to question if you’ll ever be physically beautiful enough to be desired. My body has been through several changes, physically and internally, because the hormones in a woman’s body keep changing. It’s never a linear curve; it’s always an up & down graph. Your body fits in with your environment, and I remember when I was first diagnosed with PCOS, despite having a normal weight, I broke down. Because if you see the available resources online, they are almost successful in convincing you that motherhood would be difficult.
What does it feel like to be a woman?
Every insecurity creeping in makes you feel that,
You can never be enough.
Every time we want to feel heard and,
If we raise our voice, we are told that we are too loud, and we are trying to assert our dominance.
I laugh to think why men are never pointed out when they raise their voice?
Everybody change feels like,
You are too fat or too thin.
We are conditioned to feel that no matter what our body size, weight, or skin colour is, there’s always something wrong with us.
Somewhere right now a girl is standing in front of the mirror seeing herself if she’s “beautiful enough” and if she’s “desirable enough.”
Why do we always doubt ourselves and,
Think we are not good at making our name or our identity.
Why is our identity tied to Ms, Mrs, or widow?
Unlike a man who’s always known as Mr.
Why does the cycle never end?
Why are we taught to romanticise male violence and accept male dominance?
Why can’t we question anything that makes us forcefully submit and bend?
Every wave of change makes us think if we are,
Relevant, or if we are too much.
It pains me to see how every societal norm is tailored for us to follow, but never for the men.
How every job is tailored to a man’s energy level and never to a woman’s.
We are labelled as too hormonal, we are told that we are PMSing, but what about the silent battle that most women fight after pregnancy?
Of course, it’s so easy to be a woman, because if we fear for our lives after seeing any horrific news about any girl facing brutal violence, we are too hysterical.
So, don’t tell any woman that she’s overreacting because how do you explain the fear she feels walking at night just for a walk without possibly having her heart pounding?
You’d never know what it is to feel like your entire life is down to one moment, one night, one instance of fear.
I love being a girl; there are weak moments that every girl fights in silence.
I’ve seen how most fathers have been absent for their daughters to feel safe and loved.
Then we question why most girls are untrusting of men.
It’s overwhelming to grow and see how far you’ve come.
You try to never let yourself feel bad about it, though you always find your loneliness coming over you because you didn’t feel it when you were younger.
Now, I wish that when I was younger, I had been more seen and heard.
I wished I had someone to make me feel confident for being a girl and becoming a woman.
But here I am, 20, looking at the past, and looking around, realising how far I’ve made it.
Conclusion
Everything has become so commercial, just like our identities. If you don’t have a sense of self, you are to feel ashamed. It’s never easy. And, it sinks my heart when I look around and see the younger generation of girls growing up. What are they learning, and what are they going to normalise now, when society has been so brutal with us? I don’t want the same for them. I don’t want them to chase being physically desired or touched because they never felt that confidence in themselves. I don’t want them to feel invalidated or ugly just because their body is changing. I want them to love themselves, accept themselves and uplift the way they are because in the end, they need to realise that they are their own hero.
