Celebrating Epic Femininity at the door of my 25 Birthday

Simone de Beauvoir once said in her book The Second sex

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”

Simone de Beauvoir

i remember reading the quote in some movie on the TV back in my teenagerhood.

I was about 13 years old, having my first period. I was sitting with my dad watching

MBC 2, and panicking if he notices something different in me. I was regularly getting

up to check if I had any blood spot on the sofa or my pants. or if I smell different.

Basically, i changed my menstruation pink pads every time I go to the toilet.

Trying to understand the transition that my body is going through. Figuring out how

to identify myself in my humble society. What am i expected to do? Can i Play Chou9ifa anymore? Can I stay at Hamza'House and play Supermario with him?

Can I still wear my shorts and skirts?

Am I a woman now? But what was I? and what is a woman anyway?

It was Total Panic!

My mom was looking different to me, she celebrates with me this crucial event by buying me LONGER SKIRTssss. My grandma Zaineb was very very serious and defensive about me riding a bicycle anymore.

It was my body, and it still my body what defines me in a patriarchal society. A woman is nothing but an 'object' to the man. She is either a girl, a wife, a mom, a grandma, a sister or a daughter.

I was a daughter and a sister. i was safe at the definition. But i was more to other 'gazes'. i get over Menstruation trauma after i was diagnosed with endometriosis.

It was Trauma every single month until this day!

But my real struggle was when it comes to my sexuality and sensuality.

I have suffered from sexual abuse in different forms and degrees. And that changed

how i perceive my body in a negative form. I believed that my body does not belong to me, it belongs to my family the present and the future one. I started to cover myself, I have been so insecure until i wear Hijab, as a protective decision.

But things didn't change and gazes still get through my skin as poising knife. I hated my body for years. Until one day,i read for Anais Nin, a book i found on the Frip shop! i liked the cover and i was so proud of my english. She was unapologetically a woman with all of it.

Without shame or fear. She embraced her own femininity and reading her taught me to do so. I choose to become a woman, to define myself by myself and to take responsibility for it. The journey was long and up and downs, i needed a routine to focus and heal my body. I continued reading erotica and poems for writers that cherishes women's beauty and magic.

And i fall in love with myself and for myself and by myself.

The details of my journey are long , painful and beautiful. It is another article.

This one is for me, for my body, for the woman i am today. Simply for letting go and turn some heads without feeling guilty!

By Soulayma Werghemi

Pop Art Crying GIF By Emma Darvick