The Steely Sheen of the Fairer Sex

One of my favorite movie lines comes from the 1955 film The Tender Trap:

"You want a girl. That's what you all want -- a girl. And that's what you can never have, because the only way to have a girl is not to marry her, because then she becomes a wife. That's something entirely different." -Sylvia Crews

What is the difference between being a girl and being a woman? Is it becoming a mother, or a wife, or a particular age? I believe that you become a woman when you begin to realize that life is not black and white, that hard choices have to be made, and you assume your role as a protector.

You see, there is a ferocious mother bear in every woman. This instinct is not reserved for children, but encompasses spouses, friends, disadvantaged strangers, and above all, yourself. A woman learns early on that though the brawn of man may be greater, no one will really protect her when she needs it the most, no one else can be relied upon for survival. That job is entirely her own. Biologically we may be wired this way for very practical reasons, the most basic instinct of any animal is to survive and reproduce. These two things would be very difficult if a mother was reliant on her mate.

So it goes, the theme of womanhood seems to be all around me. Watching a documentary on Burt and Linda Pugach, a story of a beautiful girl brutally burned and blinded by her spurned lover who 14 years later marries just that man, to me is not a story about love but about becoming a woman. Linda survived, she lived her life bravely and joyously until her sight left her completely and she realized her best option was to take back this lunatic who had become her only true option as a caregiver and provider. (This being the 1960's women were much less empowered to provide for themselves, especially disabled ones.)

Whether it is single mothers and college girls stripping for money, Hillary Clinton braving matrimonial humiliation to reach her political ends, Afghani women sustaining beatings to protect each other or simply a wife who would rather sleep with her husband than break his heart by revealing her disdain for him; women do what needs to be done every day. Our choices may seem calculating and cold, but I say that they are merely our biology taking over. Girls aimlessly follow their hearts, women have the burden of balancing their hearts and their minds.

Though I chase youth like the carrot-on-the-end-of-a-stick, the fact is, I became a woman a long time ago. Perhaps this is why I lack shame and regret, I see my choices not as bad, but as human. Though sacrifice comes naturally to me, I am a ferocious protector, and the cub that has been with me the longest is me.