It’s Time to Honor Our Inner Woman

Just like we distinguish soft from hard, defiant from obedient, pretty from ugly, belligerent from pacific in language, we distinguish womanhood from manhood. We attribute all womanliness to the female body, while we attribute all virility to the male. Yet, just like there is soft in hard and hard in soft and also there is belligerent in pacific and pacific in belligerent, there is virility in woman and womanliness in man. And happily so! This week, where we celebrate International Working Women’s Day, I talk about how it’s time for us to honor our inner woman, the womanly traits in us, and how we can start doing that, whether we are a man or a woman.

International Women’s Day

So why do we celebrate Women’s Day on March 8th? The history of the day goes back to the women garment workers in New York City who went on a strike demanding improved working conditions. On March 8th, they were attacked by the police and 120 women burned to death in a fire in a factory.

I’d rather it be called International Womanly Traits Days instead of International Women’s Day. World history has been and is being shaped by violence against all things womanly. As violence breeds violence most of us have scars in our womanly side. Yet the condition of being and connecting through candor, trust and intuition, which is the energy of womanhood, is the healing power that cures the earth.

We can use the following affirmations to heal our wounds by honoring the womanly traits that signify our inner women:

• My imperfections make me special, I am good enough.
• I let my inner beauty to surface.
• I express my womanly traits bravely.
• I am nurtured by the network of true relationships where I share my vulnerability.
• I act bravely for my wishes and aspirations.
• I approach my inner conflicts peacefully.
• I get to cooperate better with the opposite sex as I learn to conciliate my inner womanly and manly traits.

I invite all of us, men and women alike, to honor the woman within us, our womanliness.

Happy Women’s Day to us all.