Female Biology is the Center of Women's Power
Female biology matters. Our unique physiology is our magic as women.
Women are not small men…
We’re currently sitting at a crossroads in history.
Behind us lies hundreds (if not thousands) of years wherein women were treated as possessions, were under strict control, and were considered biologically inferior to men.
“In the ancient Jewish text, the Talmud, menstruation is described as one of the ten curses given to Eve by God to punish her for rebellion; it refers to the womb as a ‘place of rot.’...the Presbyterian founder John Calvin called menstruation a ‘foul disease’. …A Scottish medical text from the Middle Ages included the poem, ‘Oh! Menstruating woman, thou’t a fiend; From which all of nature should be closely screened’.”
–Rachel Reed, Reclaiming Childbirth as a Rite of Passage
“At a fundamental level, all major scientific textbooks depict male and female reproductive organs as systems for the production of valuable substances, such as eggs and sperm. In the case of women, the monthly cycle is described as being designed to produce eggs and prepare a suitable place for them to be fertilized and grown - all to the end of making babies. But the enthusiasm ends there. By extolling the female cycle as a productive enterprise, menstruation must necessarily be viewed as a failure. Medical texts describe menstruation as the "debris" of the uterine lining, the result of necrosis, or death of tissue. The descriptions imply that a system has gone awry, making products of no use, not to specification, unsalable, wasted, scrap.”
–Emily Martin, The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles
Over the past century (and longer), women have fought to be seen as equal to men. And the fight has been a good one. But in many instances, the results of this fight have pushed us into the underbelly of the same problem.
Instead of liberating our magical nature as women, we have unintentionally bought into the idea of male bodies and lives as being the default, and tried to match up in an attempt at liberation (“We can do anything men can do!”).
But suppressing our hormones with pharmaceuticals, pathologizing and medicalizing our bodies, holding a distaste for or fear of all biological female processes, and trying so hard to “fit in” in a male dominated world isn’t liberation.
It’s just redecorating the gilded cage we were already in.
Men themselves aren’t nourished by the civilization they have designed, either. Perhaps it’s time to rethink to whose table we wish to belong, and if the table itself is where anyone belongs at all.
Women’s bodies are designed perfectly for female mammalian and biological functions. Their bodies support the development and capacity of the soul. The body isn’t a thing to “cast off” or beat into submission. It is a living miracle.
Women’s hormones are magical and don’t need to be muted or controlled. They need to be nourished and given lives that are slow and nurturing.
Women are not overly emotional or crazy. They ebb and flow through many worlds during the phases of their cycles (which are also magic). Their nervous systems need peace and rest in order to sink deeply into the incredible otherworldly spaces their hormones can take them.
Women’s bodies grow full human beings from scratch in only 9 months. Then, their bodies magically communicate and collaborate with their babies throughout the process of labor, birth, and postpartum. Instinctually, physiologically, spiritually.
Women’s breasts magically know how to feed those babies with rich, bioavailable nutrients and microbes (custom formulated for that baby on that particular day). Their breasts are always at the right temperature so that their babies stay warm or cool enough. Breastfeeding helps to regulate the baby’s brand new + untrained nervous system, synchronize their heartbeats and breathing patterns to each other’s, and deepen the primal attachment that began in the womb.
Women’s bodies know how to adapt to environments, slow down fertility to match high stress levels of environments, and then recover back to a fertile state when all is abundant and well in the world again.
Women’s reproductive capacity isn’t just about making babies either (not every woman can or chooses to have babies). It’s about a deep connection to a vast creative power, anchored in spirit and standing on the otherworldly liminal spaces of birth and death.
When women’s reproductive years are over, their bodies know how to transform into a vessel for wisdom, community leadership, and spiritual power. Humans are the only primates that live well beyond their reproductive years, which means that Grandmothers have an extraordinary role in passing on culture and wisdom to the next generation. Once again female biology is wise.
Women need:
Deep and abundant nourishment (customized for the female body living in a chronically stressful world)
Slow days and long sleeps
Cyclical living and working (tuning into and out of the “real world,” as needed)
Recognition of true, biology-based physiology and the deep respectful care that accompanies that wisdom (reducing medical abuse and subsequent PTSD)
Deep connection to their babies (and deep, village-centered support)
Shared care of their children with other safe, nurturing adults (tribal mothering and alloparenting)
Freedom to express themselves without guilt or diminishing their voice
Full autonomy in body, mind, and soul
To be honored as magical beings, their bodily processes not enshrouded in shame
To re/learn how their bodies work, so they can harness their physiological superpower and rewild their relationships with their bodies
To heal their dysregulated nervous systems, so they can feel and act whole again
To be honored as they age, claiming their rightful Wise Woman role in society
To not be medicalized, pathologized, or masculinized…in any of their magical phases of life
Women are not small men.
We are the embodiment of the Great Mother. No more, no less.
Remembering this truth is the ultimate rebellion and act of reclamation in a world that has forgotten how to be a wild human upon this beautiful Earth.
