I will not be shaken.

I am a woman. This is the basis of my identity. For whatever time I have spent on this earth, I have been encouraged to be feminine. We, women, are coiffed and powdered, poised. We're soft to the touch with gentle hands, soft skin. We are the neck that turns the head; we are behind every powerful man. I have been encouraged to be feminine, to find my place in the world among other women in a role pertinent to my identity. Maybe a nurse, maybe a teacher, maybe a mother. Always to be feminine, girly and occasionally subservient.

But I will not be shaken.

Let it be known that we are not set aside to be lost on the cusp of a man's dream. Created as equals, our desires and dreams and needs are equally important. It's alright that I cannot play on the boys' team—while I might want to be equally important, I am not equal to my male counterpart. I am different, with compassion and feminine wiles to prove it. Perhaps the brute force of the boys' team might be intimidating, and I believe they're stronger than me, but I don't want to be equivalent to any of them. Instead, I want to find pride in my identity; being a woman is something to be proud of rather than wasting wishing I was equivalent to my brother. Though I don't want to play on the boys' team, it doesn't mean I can't play the game better.

From pant suits to gender segregated professional roles, we've come so far from where we were, designated to have a baby on our hip every so often and something baking in the oven when our husband comes home. I'm a caretaker—that's another part of my identity, so maybe I want to have dinner ready when my future husband comes home because I enjoy being capable of taking care of another person. I enjoy doing what I'm able. My mother did, and so did her mother before her. So did your mother, maybe your sister. Before you say I am neglecting my potentially feminist perspective, think of it this way: I'm able, maybe he isn't, to make dinner. I can do more than my male counterpart… I can play the game better.

Men can wear pants, but only women can wear both a dress or pants. Someone has to wear the pretty skirt, it might as well be us. We can be kind and let men wear pants as they have no other options. Let us be kind, let them think they chose this. We are the neck that turns the head, us women and with our heads held high, we can let men think they made this decision when in reality, it was us. It was us, and will always be us.

I'm not ready to say I'm a feminist, or I'm not a feminist. I believe the dictionary definition of feminism suits me and a lot of women well: we believe in equal rights and opportunities for women and men. By declaring we want equal rights to men, isn't that saying we need what men need? My reproductive system disagrees. What my healthcare plan designates as birth control and what I am entitled to should surely be different than the plan that my brother needs. Maybe we'll both get lucky and birth control will be free! At the end of the day, what I need and what he needs differ, as should our opportunities and rights thereafter.

I don't want to burn my bra (this is possibly a lie) and I don't hate men. That stereotype is quickly applied to a woman who believes in equality for men and women. Accept that like everything, there is a spectrum that these beliefs fall on. Perhaps that's somewhere in the middle, where most of us women rest. But we don't act because we aren't holding one another's hands and telling each other we're beautiful and strong. We rest beneath the shade of complacency.

This isn't an attestation that I think women need to find themselves non-traditional careers and that their husbands need non-traditional gender roles where they too can sing lullabies and braid hair. No, not at all. The intention is only to provide incentive to admire another woman for doing exactly whatever it is she finds herself doing. If a woman wants to have children and stay at home to raise them, good for her! Let's praise her and encourage her to be the best stay-at-home mom possible. If a different woman doesn't want children at all and instead wants to pursue an all encompassing career, she should! She should pour her passion and very soul into what she did, ensuring that she was the best woman for the job. And no, that isn't to say a man can't do any of these things. It is merely to attest to the need for women to celebrate their femininity and acknowledge the difference between them and their male counterparts. It is merely to encourage every girl to look at another with the shared knowledge that it is our shared identity. It is in the same rites of passage we all endure.

I will not be shaken.

I will withstand. I will wait with patience as I am accepted for the woman I am, when that moment comes. But it will come. Until then, I'm content to wear the pretty skirt, to have soft skin and to smell like flowers. Someone has to—it might as well be the woman.