The Weight Of Womanhood

Confronting Rules, Resilience, and the Urgent Need for Change

Being a woman is beautiful; there’s something sacred, the warmth, the strength, the magic of creating, surviving all at once. Usually, when I think about how beautiful being a woman is, the negative sides of being a woman overpower it. Being a woman also means carrying the weight that never leaves your shoulders; it starts with being told what to do, how to be, over and over again until the word “don’t” feels stitched into your skin. “Don’t wear this,” “don’t talk like that,” “don’t go out at night.” When did being born a woman become a set of rules instead of life?

It often begins at home. We grow up learning what’s expected of a “good girl,” while we see those rules don’t apply to the boys around us. These things shape women so much that they can never do anything of their own free will and always think about what others would think about her.

And even though we find ourselves with women who “seem” free (provided the basic needs), we know many others still aren’t, still being controlled on what they do with their life. For instance, we definitely know people who are being told that they can study but not work because that’s not something women do in our “culture.” “Dream” but not “decide”? “Live” but not “lead”? The irony: we’re told we can do whatever we want after we get married, surely a phrase almost every woman has heard, only for the so-called “freedom” to be replaced by responsibility. We all know that there is no such thing as “freedom” for women, because when was the last time you saw a woman actually being “free”? Mom? Sister? Literally no one.

Then there’s a quiet war within our own reflection. No one was born insecure; we are taught to be. Somewhere between growing up and growing aware, the world starts pointing out what’s wrong with us: our skin, our weight, our hair, our voice, our height, literally everything. We learn beauty through comparison, and insecurities through repetition. Even the most beautiful women, those we often find ourselves comparing to, those the world considers “the standard”, often break under the visible pressure. Women are not weak; they are made to feel weak.

What hurts more is how women are judged for simply expressing how they feel. Speak up, and you risk being called “too much.” Open up to people about what you are feeling only to be called “pick me.” So most of us shrink our pain to silence. Women are called emotional, but yet somehow we are expected to carry everyone’s emotions.

We talk to other women about what we are suffering because they get it, the fear, the exhaustion, the constant scanning for safety. Because something as simple as going out at night comes with warnings: “it’s not safe.” Safe from exactly what? You guessed it, not ghosts, not animals, but men.

And let’s not even get started with the double standards. What’s strange is how often the world generalizes women, but refuses to do the same with men. Few toxic women do exist, sure, but suddenly “all” women are manipulative, attention-seeking, and what not. Yet when men hurt, harass, assault, or even rape women, every single day, it’s never “men are like that”; it’s just “some men.” Don’t generalize?

So many names exist for a woman for simply existing, but all of them somehow applies to women alone, never the male, no equal shame.

If a woman is too friendly, “she’s too available or easy to get.” If she works, she doesn’t take care of family and is selfish. If she stays at home, she is not contributing anything towards the family or she’s too lazy. Every choice comes with a tag, a woman can’t win.

What makes it worse is how easily society turns the blame into habit. When a woman is assaulted, people ask what she wore, where did she go, why was she alone, as if “fabric decides consent.” Even children, literal babies, have been victims, but still the world clings to “what was she wearing,” or “she didn’t say 'NO'?” If clothes are the problem, why a literal baby? But no, the blame always circles back to women. Clothes don’t invite danger; entitlement does.

We often find elder women have been conditioned to silence the truth. In some villages in India and many other places, the survivors of rape are forced to marry their rapist because society says her “dignity” is lost, as if her worth was ever tied to her virginity.

A study in 2023 by the Delhi Commission for Women on sexual assault against minors found that 57% of the perpetrators were the victim’s father or uncle. In 2022, 96.6% of rapes were committed by someone known to the victim, including family members, neighbors, and friends.

But when a girl finally gathers up courage to tell someone, they are hushed up as to protect their “respect”, never realizing that they are protecting the abuser. This silence is why things don’t change, but we can’t keep passing this mindset down. We’re the generation that has to wake up, to raise sons to respect and daughters who are not afraid, to make the world a place safe for everyone to live. Every small act of resistance counts: speaking up, believing in survivors, and taking action instead of silencing them. The world won’t change overnight, but it will start with us.

Written By Sana