One is not born a woman: a personal essay
“One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.” The opening line of Simone Beauvoir’s Book II of The Second Sex is a cornerstone of feminist theory. As a young child, I didn’t think of myself as a girl. It wasn’t that I was opposed to it, but I simply didn’t feel like I fit my own idea of what a woman was. A woman was not a human being. A “woman” was an idea. Something feminine that serves to compliment the default human being, “the man.” Women are pretty accessories. They weren’t presidents, scientists, or historians. Of course there were exceptions, but they weren’t reflective of a true woman, because they were exceptions. Of course, I saw myself capable, so I saw myself as a human, not whatever this mythical “woman” was. It didn’t upset me, but there was a significant disjunction between my self-perception and how the media showed me my gender. As I grew older, this disjunction began causing a deep unease in my identity. I felt that I couldn’t stop the impending doom of womanhoo...
