What makes us women?

"No woman is born, but becomes one".
Simone de Beauvoir

Go ask my editor made me: what makes us women? My first impulse was to review the emerging theories of science, philosophy, feminism and all the accumulated judgments and prejudices to try to explain this mode of being, from this body, but gave up. Too many.

Women are so many and so different, like grains of sand on a beach, which I think is not possible to define a unique form of "womanhood" as the generalizations such as political polls are terrible for inaccurate, untrue and unhelpful. As inaccurate, dishonest and terrible is the male fantasy, the idea that men have established what "should be" women.

There are plenty of men who say 'I made you woman "by having sex with a woman who has not practiced coitus. Macho, fantasy and erroneous assumption, which I will not deal here.

Reflecting on his own life, I see that I made woman from the presence and influence in my life for hundreds of other women. In this genealogy, real and symbolic, I find my essence.

As a girl in the process of domestication, everything went against my wishes. Do not upload, do not do, do not tell, do not move, do not touch, do not ask, do not reveal, do not yell, act, girls do not say that. And the desire to be inquisitive, active, curious, were delayed by the physical and psychological violence. What he wanted most at that stage was being a teenager. Maybe that was the secret.

As a teenager, with all the hormones at a trot, was worse prior to the prohibitions were added. Do not leave, do not you dress well, do not see that, do not you hang out with her or him, do not ask, do not question, that's not for you. What I offered was more obedience and more responsibilities, without any right to return. By turning my body, questions and desires are accumulated, but not answers. There was more violence. The physical and psychological sex was added. I wanted to be an adult to see if there was the key to the door.

I reached adulthood and, without knowing much about the case, I found myself being proposed mother without letting me know. Sharing a bed and making love sometimes unwittingly, for soon had my wish, because even I myself was able to express it. Pleasure, when it appeared, was more than unexpected enjoyment. The horror of abortion, is this woman?

A physical, psychological and sexual violence was added to the discrimination and harassment at work, to see how better remuneration is preferred and a man even though both have the same capacity, and finally my age that does not fall in the range set by the companies. While my duties and all are beautifully express, printed, bound and dusty in a Constitution and a treaty that are dead letters.

This is not counting the victimization or a complaint. It is a reality that all in, one way or another we have lived, and many others, increasingly seek to change. Break with this situation has not been easy, but it is possible. It is a process in which we must go together. That is the key.

I'm one and the sum of many more: I gave birth, which I raised and spoiled me, which taught me to read, which protected me, which took over caring for my children while I worked, which cleaned my house, the older woman that I spoke of desire as he played the violin, he taught me how to tip of anger had to do things that made me love my body as it is, that was always there to listen and monitor, which taught me to say NO. Those who continue to teach me to say YES.

Might find it too ginofilia. All these women I spoke to them I live. Each has produced in me a change, I recognize and appreciate. Each of them has been an example of what I do not want to be. I am a woman in terms of myself, not the men with whom I lived as a family companion, partner.

Gradually recognize as a woman with rights, make my own decisions about my body, my pleasure, my economy, my life has made me more open and in many ways, happier.

I want the same thing for all.