The Beauty of Woman

Preface

I’ve mentioned in past entries that my personal understanding of what it is to be a woman, at least in my youth, was almost entirely negative. There are reasons for this I don’t wish to spend time explaining here, but if you are interested I shared a few of my thoughts on that subject in this entry.

It was many years into my marriage (we’re in our 29th year), that my perspective on womanhood began to take on new meaning, and with the advent of yet another dastardly assault on women by men, I felt the need to share some of my own ruminations on, not only what a woman is, but what it means to be a woman, which I believe are two very different concepts.

As I don’t find gender dysphoria an adequate qualification for womanhood, I will not be further addressing the subject here.

My desire is to reach out to the global community of women—you know who you are—and attempt to describe feminine feelings and concerns, not as if we were a school of mindless fish emotionally swarming around a common pool of thought, but instead, as one member of a solar system of transcendent beauty and rhythm that only a woman can and would comprehend when encountering it.

My thoughts are my own. Yet, if they resonate in any way with my fellow women, I will feel the point has been carried.

Womanhood

Although the responsibility of womanhood and matriarchal status is the birthright of every woman, the mantle of womanhood is shouldered by females at a variety of different stages of life. No two women wear the mantle the same, nor do they choose to assume it at the same age or phase of life.

The process of transitioning from girl to woman is a very personal and private materialization and a transformation only the female undergoing the change will witness fully.

Throughout history cultures have attempted to accelerate this process by force-syncing the transformation with puberty and fertility. In very masculine style, many societies, both past and present, ceremonialize the coming of age of females from child to adult when they begin to cycle, and therefore become fertile and viable as a provider of offspring.

Yet, despite the fallacy that fertility (or motherhood) and matriarchy are one in the same, the internal change from maiden to matriarch is a much longer and more profound process than a simple ceremony, or even the birth of a child, can proclaim or constrain.

Womanhood is a coming of age, a coming to terms, and a maturation process. Like a fine wine is aged to perfection, so is the becoming of a woman, and only the woman knows, internally, when they have been refined sufficiently to assume the mantle with grace and dignity.

Woman, as an object of beauty

Women are beautiful, and in my opinion, should be admired as such. However, valuing beauty as superficial appearances alone is the hallmark of base and juvenile distinction.

Yes, outward appearance is a part of the beauty equation, as nature so often teaches. But where a sort of formulaic, ageless and immortal, outward show of beauty is often admired above that of the stages and development of refined and cultivated beauty, hyper-obsession with youth’s charm and allure develops an inward decay of the most disgusting kind.

Women are beautiful, but only inasmuch as they are capable of seeing and valuing true beauty are they able to maintain that beauty within and without.

The cultivation and care it takes to continually redefine and increase the definition of beauty into one’s maturing years is the mark of grace, and the true appeal of a woman is not in her outward appearance alone, but in the polished refinement of her soul that shines through and illuminates her aging body.

Where most believe plastic surgery and miracle anti-aging products will beautify and enhance a woman’s attractiveness, without inner refinement and attention to one’s character, intelligence, and integrity, the outer mask will only vaguely cover the shallow, weak, and ghastly shrew lying within.

Beauty is, as they say, much more than skin deep.

A woman is only as beautiful as she is kind, positive, strong, courageous, fury-like in her protection of all she loves, poised under stress, devoted, cultivated and refined, capable of both giving and receiving, and well-groomed, although the list is much longer and much more personal than that.

Beauty is the culmination of a variety of effects.

A woman is much more than her biology and physiology, and so is her beauty.

The most beautiful women are also the most interesting women, and their appeal and interest only increases with age.

Being A Woman

It took many years for me to have the wherewithal to call myself, woman.

Even after getting married, giving birth to and raising three children, and living as a functioning adult as a mortgage holder and taxpayer did the idea of being a woman begin to settle over me some, and still I resisted.

Truthfully, it was hardship that taught me how to be a woman.

It was the many nights sitting beside the bed of a sick member of my family and doing everything possible to keep them comfortable, hold their hair or the bowl as they vomited, administer medicine round the clock, getting a little sleep only when they were out of danger and sleeping themselves.

It was the years of learning to cooperate in a marriage, swallow my pride when I was wrong, admit and say that I was sorry, and offer forgiveness and accept an apology when I had been wronged.

It was the mistakes made, the stupid things that came out of my mouth, the tears, the struggles, the pain.

It was guilt and shame that taught me to offer and receive grace.

It was giving support of the most difficult and painful kind, even when I wanted to find a place in the universe where I could outrun and hide the hurt, the grief, and the exhaustion.

The list is much longer, but I think my point is made.

Certainly, there were and are many happy moments that define me as a woman, but where I saw the rise of certainty that I was and am, most definitely, a woman, were in the moments that required a woman’s touch, a woman’s love, a woman’s bravery, a woman’s immutability, and the oak tree like support that is the resolute emotional, physical, and spiritual undergirding that is a woman’s purpose and potential.

Sometimes, the remnants of the girl I was still define areas of my character that have not been proven against a matriarchal prerequisite.

The scared and dependent little girl or young woman I was when I embarked on marriage and my life as a so-called adult still haunts many aspects of my mind and heart.

Honestly, I’m unnerved by and stand shaking at the thought of the testing and proving it will take to fully womanize my soul and body completely, for it has been out of the ashes of my most difficult and challenging moments the woman in me has risen and assumed the mantle of matriarch that has quelled the fears of the weaker aspects of my soul.

The Counterfeit Woman

Despite the many forgeries of womanhood taking the stage in our modern world, no counterfeit, delusional, game of dress-up will ever meet the demands and requirements for matriarchal status.

As with anything worth obtaining, becoming a woman is a blood, sweat, and tears battle of the wills, not some mental fantasy or surgical procedure.

The fact that there are those who, without a clue or comprehension of all a woman endures to become the beautiful and noble creature she is, fraudulently debase and discredit the role of the matriarch in our society, is disgusting to me.

Those who believe that a woman can be reductionisticaly whittled down to a dress, heels, a bit of makeup, and some kind of PMS-led emotional rantings are the most deluded and revolting of all.

One can define a woman as they choose, but those of us who are women, those of us who have sacrificed and given all to bear the mantle and title of woman, will not, cannot, acknowledge such forgeries as facts.

Whatever those impersonators believe themselves to be, it is not what a woman is, and in my opinion, any female, adult or not, who purports to support such fallacies as fact are, themselves, simply skirting the borders of womanhood themselves but have not yet arrived.

Conclusion

The beauty of a woman is not skin deep. In fact, outer appearance is such a superficial marker it is almost unworthy of note.

History has celebrated a woman’s fertility, I want to celebrate her resiliency. Men have celebrated her virginity, I want to celebrate her willfulness.

Womanhood cannot be fabricated or faked. By virtue of its artificiality, a thing is fake. Therefore, only a woman can be a woman.

Becoming a matriarch is too complex and sophisticated a transformation for the sort of infantile gesture and game many are trying to play. One can certainly pretend to be a woman, even immature girls do that, but only a woman knows when the process of becoming is complete.

To all of the women out there who choose to read this obscure little entry, my hope is that you will find support, recognition, and the inspiration to keep up the good work, the work that only you can do, and by virtue of the powerful, yet often trivialized and underestimated, mantle of womanhood, protect and defend the beauty of woman.

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