Being a Woman.....and men (not being one, but just men in general...)

I am not sure where to begin with this one, but gender has become huge for me so far on this trip. Gender is not something I have given second thought to until now and all of the sudden I feel completely effected by it every day. Although Estela was ranting about men practically every day, and the significance of being a woman, I just wasn´t really getting it. Now, however, it is starting to click. Just starting, but its taking my head all over the place! In the society I have grown up in, women are commodities, products, and men use them so. We are bought and sold in all sorts of shapes and forms. We are used and thrown around not only for our bodies and sexual appeal, but also for our motherly characteristics that most men need and find great comfort in. This does not mean, however, that as I woman, I must hide from and be ashamed of my beauty. It simply means that I must learn how to protect it. We are naturally beautiful beings and there is no reason to shy away from that, only to embrace it and protect ourselves from the lure it attracts. Women in India, for example protect their children by putting lines of thick makeup around their eyes. Create your mask before you go out onto the street, Estela always tells me. Paint your eyes to ward away that at which comes at you... And although she says it jokingly, she is dead serious. Practice your evil eye and use it when necessary. Ha! Its hard for me but I am trying...

If men do not begin to learn how to treat and act towards a woman respectfully and not treat her as a cheap product, women will begin to resent and hold huge grudges. I definitely hold resentment, distrust, and grudges that I am trying to learn how to release. I am not sure how to even begin to teach men how to think and act towards women, but I am at least for now learning how, as a woman, to protect myself from their draining (at times) energy and games.

All of these thoughts, and many more, are completely swimming around in my head, and because they are new concepts (well not new concepts, but new, gosh, I am not sure...new wake-up calls, maybe)... for me, I will share them with you bit by bit, or as you would say here, poco a poco...We will see where they take us...