I'm not quite sure how I became aware of Women's Wednesday, but when I looked it up, I realized that it probably started as an advertising ploy to pull female customers in. I see that lots of different businesses have special deals for women on Wednesdays. There are also Working Women's Wednesdays.
Here on Blogspot and also on Facebook, Diana Black hosts Women's Wednesday Weblink, a "celebration of women every Wednesday on the web." Her aim is to "celebrate sisterhood, share ideas, embrace similarities, and discuss differences." She has been posting for about four-and-a-half years. She's posted some great quotes by famous women. Every week, she posts "a positive, life-affirming quote from a woman who clearly has a message to share."
Over the years, I've thought a lot about why I came into this lifetime as a woman. In my spiritual belief, I am Soul, and Soul is neither male nor female. Rather, Soul includes qualities that are associated with both genders. In each successive lifetime, we hone and refine different qualities, and the more lifetimes a Soul has here in the physical plane, the more It learns about integrating male and female qualities into a seamless whole.
What does it mean to be a woman?
A lot of people might answer that question with statements about being a mother. Others will talk about a woman's role in relationships. But what if you don't have any children and you are not in a relationship? Are you still a woman?
I never really thought of it this way before, but according to an article for Planned Parenthood, gender is "our social and legal status." That seems true, in light of the fact that there are Souls in male bodies who wish to live as females, and vice versa. Gender identity is how you feel about your gender and how you express it to the world. The article reminded readers that culture determines gender roles and ideas about what is feminine and what is masculine.
Here are some words commonly used to describe femininity: dependent, emotional, passive, sensitive, quiet, graceful, innocent, weak, flirtatious, nurturing, self-critical, soft, sexually submissive and accepting. Not all of these qualities are necessarily positive, in my opinion.
Here are words typically used to describe masculinity: independent, non-emotional, aggressive, tough-skinned, competitive, clumsy, experienced, strong, active, self-confident, hard, sexually aggressive, and rebellious. Not all of these qualities are positive, either, but most of them are.
If you took the positive qualities from each list and combined them, you would have someone who is self-reliant but appreciative of others and respectful of relationships, someone who is capable of feeling but who doesn't wear their emotions on their sleeves in order to control others, someone who is equally at home working in the background as being in the lead, someone who is strong and graceful, someone who is experienced or in the process of gaining experience, someone who is smart, self-confident, an independent thinker who values the opinions of others, and someone who is capable of being soft or hard, as the occasion requires.
Personally, I believe that I came in as a woman this time in order to balance some karma that I incurred in past lives as a woman. To me, that makes a great deal of sense. The fact that I have never been pregnant in this lifetime and that I have spent the majority of my lifetime flying solo also makes sense in this context, because I am exploring what it is to be a woman besides being a child bearer, nurturer, caretaker, or helpmeet.
I'll let you know when I figure it out. :-)
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