Womanhood is not supposed to be a battlefield.
It should’ve been a garden — soft soil, sunlight, the freedom to bloom in whatever wild, unruly shape we choose.
But somewhere between girlhood and grown woman, the world handed us armor we never asked for.

Metal-heavy.
Expectation-soaked.
Laced with rules we never agreed to.

We grew up learning to carry ourselves like we were both the poem and the shield protecting it.
And no one tells you how early the war begins.
It starts in childhood — in those tiny comments that feel harmless at first.

“Sit like a lady.”
“Why are you wearing that?”
“You’re too loud.”
“You’re too quiet.”

Before we even understand the power of our own voice, we’re already being told how to arrange it so it doesn’t inconvenience anyone.
Girlhood becomes a tightrope, and every step feels like someone else’s eyes are balancing on your shoulders.

Safety stops being a right and becomes an ongoing negotiation:

Don’t walk alone.
Don’t walk at night.
Don’t walk fast, don’t walk slow.
Hold your keys like weapons.
Share your location.
Text “home safe.”
Smile politely but not too much.
Be nice, but not naive.
Be cautious, but don’t look scared.
Be confident, but don’t provoke.
Be aware, but don’t become paranoid.
It’s a checklist we never signed up for — yet we carry it like law.

And this is the part no one warns you about:
the way womanhood makes you constantly calculate your existence.
Every walk, every outfit, every glance over your shoulder becomes a silent equation of risk.
Not because we’re fragile — but because the world is unpredictable, and too often, unforgiving.

Then comes the choices.
Choices that somehow become public property the moment we make them.

Wear makeup? You’re trying too hard.
Don’t wear makeup? You’re “letting yourself go.”
Choose ambition? You’re intimidating.
Choose softness? You’re “not serious enough.”
Choose love? You’re dependent.
Choose not to love? You’re cold.
Choose motherhood? You’re traditional.
Choose not to? You’re selfish.

Somehow, the world manages to turn a woman’s choices into a committee discussion she never asked to attend.
And yet — despite all the noise, all the eyes, all the rules — women still love with a kind of courage that should be studied.
Love, for us, is rebellion.
To love freely, loudly, vulnerably, unapologetically — it’s an act of defiance in a world that keeps trying to shrink us.

But love isn’t simple, either.
We’re taught to seek it, but also to fear it.
To open our hearts, but also to guard them.
To crave connection, but not lose ourselves in it.
It’s like we’re expected to thread a needle while the world keeps shaking the table.

We carry heartbreak differently too.
Not because it hurts more, but because it’s layered.
When women break, the world expects us to sweep up our pieces quietly — no mess, no fuss, no inconvenience.
Smile through it.
Heal quickly.
Get back to being “strong.”

But sometimes strength isn’t loud or glamorous.
Sometimes strength is just waking up and deciding to keep trying.
Sometimes strength is resting.
Sometimes strength is saying no.
Sometimes strength is daring to want more — more from love, more from life, more from ourselves.

Freedom is another battlefield altogether.
As girls, we’re taught freedom is something you earn by being “good.”
Good daughters, good students, good friends, good women.
But the older we get, the more we realize freedom is something we have to claim, often in the face of resistance.

Freedom to dress how we want.
Freedom to choose our path.
Freedom to speak without shrinking.
Freedom to take up space without apologizing for it.
Freedom to reinvent ourselves — again and again and again.

And judgment is the shadow that trails behind all of it.

Judgment from strangers, from society, from family, from other women, from ourselves.
We’re judged for wanting attention, and judged for avoiding it.
Judged for our bodies no matter what shape they take.
Judged for being sexual, and judged for not being sexual enough.
Judged for being emotional, and judged for being “too detached.”

Sometimes womanhood feels like standing in the center of a courtroom where everyone has an opinion but no one has the full story.

And yet — despite everything — womanhood is not war.
It only feels like one because of what the world has done to it.
Because of the pressure, the danger, the scrutiny, the contradictions, the centuries of expectations we inherited before we were even born.

But here’s the thing the world always forgets:
Women are not just survivors of this chaos — we’re creators in it.
We build beauty out of pressure.
We build joy out of limitations.
We build communities out of shared scars.
We build futures out of broken history.

We carry stories in our bones and resilience in our breath.
We laugh loudly even when the world tries to quiet us.
We love deeply even when the world warns us not to.
We rise every single time — not because we’re unbreakable, but because even when we crack, we continue.

Womanhood is not war.
But damn — sometimes it feels like one.
And still, somehow, we bloom.

Not because the world makes it easy,
but because we choose to,
again and again,
despite it all.
we rise, like no-one else can do

.    .    .