Category: WOMEN AND SOCIETY

A Woman’s True Beauty: The Strength in Fragility

~ womeninlivingness

Women – Are we living in a man’s world? We all know about boys having to be tough – “Boys don’t cry”, boys get given toys to confirm their future roles – trucks, footballs, fiction-hero’s, games of war….

We women may feel that we have to compete in this competitive male world, and many of us have tried to create an even playing field in our pursuit of equality for women – with the fight for the right to work, equal pay in the workforce, day-care for young children, female cricket and footy teams, promotions, baby bonuses and more. At the same time we have found ourselves often comparing with each other with regard to academic achievement, ideals of beauty, having more money or a successful career, being in relationships versus being single, and having kids.

Have we lost the precious qualities of true beauty and fragility in this battle for equality and respect?

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Accepting and Expressing Greatness — A Story About Shoes

~ womeninlivingness

Since childhood I have had an issue with my feet.

They always looked too big to me and my toes seemed too long, out of proportion as to how I judged beauty to be. As an Asian woman, I grew up holding onto the image that beauty is being soft spoken, never drawing attention to oneself and about having tiny and delicate feet, as most of the women that I grew up with had small feet, and I would compare myself with them. I would deliberately buy shoes that were a little bit too small, convinced that my feet should and could fit into them. In consequence, my feet would suffer but there were always justifications for doing this, such as in time the shoes would either ‘magically’ stretch, or that my feet were actually as I believed them to be, smaller and more delicate than they are.

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A Woman’s Choice: To Become a Mother, or Not

~ womeninlivingness

I grew up with one older brother and three younger ones. There’s quite a difference in age between us. There are fifteen, nine and eight year’s age difference between myself and my three younger brothers. 

No one asked me, nor was it expected of me, that I take on the role as ‘a second mother’ to my younger brothers, but that’s exactly what I did. I would take responsibility for them and how they felt. I used a lot of mental energy worrying about them, and also being there for them and doing things with them. At times I would even yell at them and put them into place and really acted out the ‘mothering-role’ as a teenager.

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Girl Power, or the Power of Women at Work

~ womeninlivingness

Girl power was all the rage in the 1990s and early 2000s. The phrase “girl power” is used as a term of empowerment, independence, and self-sureness, but what came of girl power, and is there such a thing as true girl power? Or more so, the true power of women?  Particularly when working together.

In 1994 the Spice Girls shot to the top of the pops with ‘Wannabee’. They were a group of women ‘working’ together, but is there more to it than that? The Spice Girls were a brand, a product, a group of women where there were friendships and where to the outer world there was a ‘spunky’ toughness. But is toughness needed in ‘girl power’ – or in truly power-full women when they are together?

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Menopause, Motherhood and Ageing: Discarding the Ideals and Discovering True Beauty

~ womeninlivingness

I recently became aware how the ideals of motherhood and related beliefs have an enormous longevity and persistence in women and girls of all ages, and can even affect how we enter and experience menopause.

I have observed girls and women from ages 12 to 50 make the possibility and reality of motherhood the focus of their lives: their sole purpose of being a woman. The number of women seeking fertility treatments has skyrocketed over the last two decades as the desire, and often desperation, to have a child kicks in, with the promise of motherhood and a complete family. In truth, and perhaps, surprisingly, this motherhood ideal continues after menopause.

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The Power of Women Appreciating One Another

~ womeninlivingness

I recently spent the weekend at a sporting event where I met many women. While I was there, I had a very ordinary, extraordinary moment that made me stop and appreciate just how powerful women can be when we support one another.

I met a woman with whom I had an instant feeling of knowing her, even though I was pretty sure we had not met. We didn’t speak that much to each other over the two days. There was a moment of chatting as we waited in line for a toilet, and another moment when her friend came to see me.

What I noticed about her was her grace, and a quiet dignity within her that perhaps she hadn’t fully recognised in herself.

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Divine Marriage – Commitment and Knowing True Love

~ womeninlivingness

I’m a bit of an oddball: I took ‘solo flyer’ to a high art form, being almost continuously and faithfully in relationships with men throughout my adult life, and yet managing to stay unmarried and separate. Not because I was looking for greener grass, but because I was not looking for any grass at all!

I’ve always felt a sense of what love means, but not seen it in the world.

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Woman Returning

~ womeninlivingness

Earlier this year I attended a workshop titled ‘Relationship with Self’, part of a new series presented by Natalie Benhayon, and Esoteric Women’s Health. The idea around these presentations is that as women today, we are not living the fullness of who we are, lacking that deep connection and knowing of ourselves as women which is impacting many areas of our lives.

At this particular presentation Natalie Benhayon was presenting alongside Miranda Benhayon and together the two women were speaking about intimacy, and in particular intimacy amongst women. They shared how as women this is actually a very natural part of us, yet in many instances it seems we are holding ourselves back from sharing this natural intimacy with one another.

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Menopause: a Deeper Connection to Myself as a Woman

~ womeninlivingness

My journey into menopause began as I started noticing and feeling certain changes in my physical body: my shape rounded slightly around my hips and lower abdomen, and there came a series of what felt like a volcanic heat erupting in my body, particularly from the chest upwards. These sweats would come and go quite quickly in duration but vary in their intensity as well as their frequency. At times the heat felt prickly and all consuming, and at other moments it was a feeling of letting go, with a quality of freedom. There were intermittent feelings of frustration, with a yearning to understand more of what was going on inside me. I found I experienced varying degrees of feeling light and heavy within my body throughout the months, and the cycles of no bleeding became longer and longer until a year had passed with no period.

What I am describing here are only some of the physical changes I began noticing. But there is more to menopause than just the physical symptoms.

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