Falling in love with Modern Womanhood

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I think I’m actually starting to fall in love with being a woman.

If you had told me this a few years ago, I might have rolled my eyes. For the longest time, womanhood didn’t feel like a gift; it felt like a set of instructions I didn’t want to follow. I grew up seeing a version of womanhood that my mother’s generation seemed to fear or at least, endure. It was a life of rules, demands, and endless sacrifices. Back then, “ambition” was a dirty word for a woman because it meant you were taking something away from your family. That womanhood was about survival. It was about how much you could bend without breaking.

But for me, it feels different. It feels like solitude. It feels like choice. It feels like waking up and realizing the walls I thought were there are actually just shadows.

I remember the exact moment the shift happened. I was scrolling through Instagram, when I came across a reel about feminism. I started reading the comments, and I saw women giving men a piece of their minds loudly, confidently, and completely unapologetically. I sat there in the dark, my phone glowing against my face, feeling this spark of disbelief. Are we allowed to be this bold? I felt a thrill, a tiny little fire starting in my chest.

For women my age, we treat things like studying, speaking up, and choosing our own careers as if they are ordinary. We drink our coffee, go to our offices, and speak our minds like it’s just another Tuesday. But it isn’t ordinary. It’s a miracle built on decades of fights we didn’t have to fight ourselves.

We forget that for the women who came before us, life was a manual they were forced to follow. Marry. Endure. Sacrifice. Comply. Success wasn’t measured by how happy they were; it was measured by how little trouble they caused. My grandmother learned womanhood as a survival tactic. Her anger had to stay hidden in the kitchen; her defiance had to be whispered. If she made waves, she risked everything. For her, courage didn’t look like a protest or a viral post; it looked like quiet endurance. She couldn’t afford the risk of speaking freely.

Even now, I see the remnants of that old world. It’s in the way that, during a family argument or a disagreement at home, the women are still the ones told to “tone it down” or “calm down.” Have you noticed that? When a man is loud, he’s “passionate” or “firm.” When we are loud, we are “hysterical” or “difficult.” Our solutions get brushed aside while the men’s thoughts take center stage. It’s incredibly annoying to realize that even in 2026, we are still expected to be the emotional shock absorbers for everyone else.

But the “modern” part of womanhood is realizing that I don’t have to accept that role anymore. I can be “difficult.” I can refuse to tone it down.

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My great-great-grandmother couldn’t have imagined a world where a woman could publish her thoughts for thousands of people to read without a man’s permission. My grandmother might have dreamed of it in her quietest moments, but survival always came first for her. For me, this freedom is so normal that it’s almost boring and that is exactly what makes it radical. The fact that I can disagree, go against the grain, and carve a path that doesn’t involve a husband or children (if I so choose) is a victory.

I can seek solitude even if the world tells me I’m “lonely.” I can chase a career without people saying I’m “cold.” I can shape my life into whatever shape I want. Even typing these words feels like I’m planting a flag in a tiny territory that belongs only to me.

But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t heavy. Freedom is exhausting.

With every choice comes a massive amount of responsibility and a new kind of pressure. Now, we aren’t just expected to be good wives; we’re expected to be “bosses,” to be fit, to be educated, to be “different,” but to still be “acceptable” enough not to scare people. There’s no guidebook for us anymore. No one is standing there with a map saying, “This is safe. This is right. This is enough.” We are the ones drawing the map while we walk, and sometimes my legs get tired.

I want to honor this privilege. Not because I’m wealthy or comfortable, but because I can exist this way. I can be loud. I can be ambitious. I can look a man in the eye and tell him he’s wrong without fearing for my life. I know this should be the bare minimum. I know the world still has a long way to go and that many women don’t have this luxury yet. But a win is a win. Even a small freedom is a world away from the silence my ancestors lived in.

When I look around, I see it everywhere. I see it in my friends who are starting businesses, in the writers I follow online, and in the strangers who refuse to shrink themselves in public spaces. We aren’t living perfectly, and God knows we aren’t living without struggle, but we are living differently.

It makes me want to write more. It makes me want to test the boundaries of this freedom to see how far it stretches. I want to honor the women before me by refusing to be limited by the rules they were forced to inherit. I want to own my space.

I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have a five-year plan or a roadmap that tells me I’m doing “womanhood” correctly. I just have this feeling, the ability to question, to choose, and to exist fully. That is what modern womanhood feels like to me. It’s not just about surviving the day. It’s about the possibility of the day. It’s solitude without shame, happiness without apology, and choice without permission.

Maybe falling in love with womanhood isn’t about finding a perfect definition. Maybe it’s just about noticing the small victories. It’s about the audacity of standing your ground in a heated argument at home and refusing to “calm down” until you’ve been heard. It’s about existing fully even when the world hasn’t quite caught up yet.

Womanhood no longer feels like a limit to me. It’s a blank page. And for the first time, I’m the one holding the pen. I get to define this life freely, courageously, and imperfectly. And honestly? That is a blessing.