All Woman

This is a fiction piece that I feel will hit home for a lot of women.

All Woman

I heard my dad come in the kitchen as I was finishing up my sandwich. He gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek as he whispered in my ear, “Congratulations Jeanie, you’re a woman now.” As he walked out, I felt the heat rush to my face and my eyes swelling with tears. I was humiliated. “I can’t believe my mother told him that I got my first menstrual cycle, can nothing be kept private?” I thought. I was humiliated. If anything, getting my period made me feel less like a woman. I felt disgusting and weighed down by the heaviness of the pad.

I felt this way every time I got closer and closer to blossoming into a full woman. In the fifth grade, when I began to get breasts, I wore sports bras as long as I could to press them down and make them less noticeable. Eventually, my mom forced me to start wearing real bras. I remember the first time she came home with one.

“Jeanie, come see. I got you a real bra!” my mom exclaimed in her peppy voice.

“Well, you can take it back,” I replied snottily.

I was laying in bed, and she came to sit on the edge of it.

“Baby, I don’t get the big deal about wearing a real bra,” she said, with furrowed eyebrows.

I would tell her the real reason about how the boys would taunt me for having breasts on the playground, but that would have opened a whole other can of worms. I can still remember all the boys putting tennis balls in their shirts and saying, “Ooh, I’m Jeanie and I have boobies.” I was mortified. Instead, I brushed it off and grumpily complied to wearing a real bra. Even then, I would pile on sweatshirts, even in the heat of summer, just to hide my breasts.

It seemed like all of the things that “made me woman” were the things that brought me the most humiliating forms of attention. It seemed that nobody could focus on my long hair or painted fingernails anymore, because my other womanly features stood out more. I would dress frumpy to try to blend into the background, but I hated living like that.

When I was in tenth grade, I had a sort of revelation in the way I thought about being a woman. I was currently taking a course in nutrition and wellness. My teacher, who was a real life cowgirl, walked in with a tri-fold poster.

“Class,” she began with her Southern draw, “today we will be learning about a very important body part-the female vagina!” She unfolded the tri-fold poster to reveal a blown up image of a vagina. I buried my head in my hands and thought to myself, “There is no way this is what we are talking about.” For some reason, I felt singled out, as if I were the only one with a vagina. I slowly looked up, and was relieved to see that the class was staring very intently at the poster and not at me.

As our teacher began to tell us about the functions of the vagina, I found myself fascinated. I had been walking around with a vagina for 16 years and had no idea all of the things it could do. I left the class with a sense of positivity about being a woman.

I continued my research and realized how blessed I am to be a woman. I have the power to give (or end) a life. I used to curse everytime I used the bathroom, just to discover that I had started the first of a dreaded seven days of bleeding. Now, I think of my period as a reward. With every drop of blood, I feel empowered and in control.

Being a woman is not always easy, but I came to realize that was not the point of being a woman. Being a woman is being in control of life and sustaining life, it is not supposed to be easy.

Author's Note

I had trouble making the turning point more climatic and the ending strong. Please give me feedback to help me make this piece better, it honestly means a lot to me.

Reviews

[emipoemi]

A great piece of writing to start. Very moving and witty at the same time. I would advise you to be careful with repetitions ("I was humiliated" is repeated twice in close proximity.....we only need that once; and the "in control" at the end feels a bit repetitious. The power and drive and grammar of the sequence is fine, it's simply the sound of "in control" is such close proximity feels a bit awkward– but that's just me). I would suggest, too, a little fleshing out of certain details – is Jeanie somewhat a pariah at school just because she's a girl? I'm referring here to the scene where she "remembers" the boys making fun of her having breasts, and it's not particularly clear whether it actually happened or she just imagined it (the word "remember" makes no difference, the flow of the narrative is not supporting the image). Is Jeanie one of the only girls at the school? Is she an early bloomer? (why are the boys picking on her - if indeed they are literally shoving tennis balls down their shirts in mockery– and not going after any other girl?....surely she's not the only girl in an all guy's school. Even if that were the case, teenagers tend to be immature, and if the boys are making fun of Jeanie for her developments, surely there would be a couple of titters during the lecture on the female genitalia). So, just little things to think about that would add some more depth to the story. What you have right now is a great start, and a fun little tale about the onset of womanhood, and the coming to be comfortable in it. I applaud your rendering of such a tale. For one of such a theme, it's indeed a thrill to read. Well done!

[Nipplegrinder]

Let me first apologize for not being a woman, but I find this piece to be quite genuine. The humiliation you felt about your father's "congratulatory" hug and kiss, was palpable. I actually felt embarrassment for him. Aside from a couple of word choices, this is good writing.

[Carly Nelson]

thank you so much!!