by Olivia Beau
3,769,600,000. That’s the approximate number of women on the plant right now that we know of*.
When we consider how women experience life, we most often think about similarities or differences based on age, relationship status, family, wealth, colour of skin – possibly one or two other factors like beliefs and health, but that’s probably about it.
Three billion , seven hundred and sixty-nine million , six hundred thousand women are, more often than not, reduced to just a handful of variables.
Consequently, the collective awareness of what it is to be a woman, by and large, falls light-years short of the reality.
Sunday morning, whilst in downward dog trying not to think of anything but “ohm”, the below list began to write itself.
Have a look down it and see how many are true for you.
My experience as a woman is:
- to have known my parents
- to not know who my parents are
- to have siblings I grew up with
- to have siblings I’ve never met (I want to, they don’t/they want to, I don’t/it’s not possible)
- to know what it is to be an only child
- to have had an education (free, private, fought for)
- to have had no education
- to know what it is to be a woman with ‘X’ colour skin
- to know abuse (emotional, physical, mental)
- to interact with the world as a gay/straight/bisexual/transgender woman
- to know what it is to have a faith I can be open about
- to know what it is to have a faith I’m persecuted for
- to know being healthy, fit and well
- to know illness (from mild to life-threatening)
- to have had to care for my parents as a child
- to know what it is to be in love
- to have never known the feeling of being in love
- to know heartache from loss of love
- to know what it is to be married (once, multiple times)
- to know what it is to have had my partner chosen for me
- to know separation and divorce
- to never be short of finance
- to know being broke
- to live my life providing for my family
- to have been able to pursue my career
- to have amazing friends
- to know what it is to feel alone
- to be at the top of my game
- to know peace
- to know war
- to physically be able to do anything I want for myself
- to need other people to do things for me because I am unable
- to be able to see the beauty of the world I live in
- be unable to see a sunset
- to be able to hear the world I live in
- to live in a world void of sound
- to be able to speak
- to be unable to use my voice
- to know freedom
- to know being imprisoned for a crime I did/did not commit
- to know slavery
- to have rights
- to feel like I have no rights
- to have children
- to have had my child die
- to want children but to be unable
- to not know where my children are
- to know a blissful state
- to know what it is to not want to be alive
- to be able to have a break or go on holiday
- to have never been away on holiday
- to know what it is to be homeless
- to have a vehicle I can get to wherever I want
- to have to use public transport everywhere I go
- to have no other choice than to spend every day looking after others
- to have no one to look after but myself
- to have a dominant feminine energy
- to have a dominant masculine energy
- to know what I want
- to not have a clue what I want
- to feel beautiful
- to feel ugly
- to feel fat
- to feel thin
- to feel indifferent about how I look
- to feel I fit in
- to feel I stand out
- to be extroverted
- to be introverted
- to be ambivert
- to know what it is to be celebrated
- to know shame
- to have a sound mind
- to feel a mess and not know how to help myself
- to know mentall illness
- to live near my family
- to live thousands of miles away
- to not know who my family are
- to know rejection
- to know love and support
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You can probably think others I’ve not listed, but it’s a starter. Had you picked just ten (I picked almost 40), the following is the number of possible combinations you could have selected.
One trillion,
six hundred and forty-six billion,four hundred and ninety-two million,one hundred and ten thousand,one hundred and twenty.That’s more variables than there are women.
Add to the eighty listed all the specific nuances of each option, (which I have done in brackets for a few), plus all the possible ways of reacting to each of them, and the numbers get really elaborate (I had to get Google involved)!
Our personal experience of being a woman is SO INEXPLICABLY UNIQUE as is that of the women we meet, read about, see on the T.V or are stood next to at the checkout. The alchemy that takes place on a daily basis as a result of both our present and past reality means we experience and frame the world in more numerous ways than we may think or believe.
Women are not only from Venus but there are trillions of different Venus’s.
Though some will favour the extent to which this shows just how individual we are, some will prefer to look at the commonalities we share. What can we do personally to show up for other women?
How we connect and empathise with lives we’ve not lived
1. We listen without judgment. We hold space for the rich diversity which has shaped and moulded not just womens’, but every person’s life. We see every journey experience as real and valid to the individual as we consider our own to be to us.
2. Awareness of our journey, especially our privileges, means we recognise that our unique micro realisation applies to a macro reality. We acknowledge and honor the experiences others face daily.
3. We choose to not buy into narrow-minded stereotypes which do not take into account the voices of those who have none. A helpful measure is that relative truths mean it is true for me and those who also believe what I do. Universal truths are true for all people!
The collective story of being a woman, which will be much talked of this week, is all the more true to reality if we can listen to, acknowledge, honor and speak up for, in truth, all those it represents.
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*based on 7.6 billion people in the world & the female population being 49.6%
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