Re-forming Womanhood

I've been sitting with a question for this last week or so: how do we re-form sisterhood?

I do mean re-form, by the way. Not reform in the way we're all used to hearing it: tightening the ship, making the rules stricter, making it harder to follow, more boxes to tick. I mean form it again - going back to what it's made of and put it together properly.

We hear a lot of 'sisterhood' tumbled around and if I'm honest, the word doesn't sit well with me. When it rolls off my tongue it feels a bit worn, a bit 'shared jeans' less community, and like it could do with a rebrand. I'll come back to that.

I think we as women are often isolated in so many ways, and, interestingly, more often at the transitional points in our lives. Becoming a mother. Leaving a job. The end of a relationship. A body that starts changing on you. The moments when the ground shifts beneath us are so often the moments we find ourselves most on our own.

It's easy to feel that isolation is the answer, because everything tells us we should be able to manage alone. I did. When I was pregnant, all I wanted to do was hide away in my own corner, in the dark and get through it all. So much so that I bought a house (spoiler alert: would not recommend doing this while pregnant!) We are encouraged to do it all, have it all, be it all, and still show up the next day looking wonderful. There's a lot telling us that. There's very little telling us there's a group of people who'd like to help.

So here's where I've landed. I feel the question isn't really how we re-form sisterhood. It's how we re-form womanhood. By that I mean rediscovering womanhood in its true form, and forming it again on purpose. Not sisterhood. Not the travelling pants. Not sharing boyfriends or make-up. Womanhood.

Sharing wisdom. Sharing the information that supports us. Offering a cup of flour when someone's in need, and flour being a metaphor for pretty much anything. A lift. An hour. The name of a good GP. The thing you wish someone had told you three years ago.

And being willing to step fully into it, knowing it's going to add to us rather than strip something away.

Good community adds to you I think it's worth saying again: any good community adds to us. It doesn't take away.

So if we find ourselves in communities or relationships that make us feel even a little bit less, that is not the space for us.

It can be hard to tell, though. For me, more often than not, I only realise long after the event that something took from me. And by then it almost feels too late. What would I even do about it now? Am I making a fuss over nothing?

But if we don't call it when we feel it, when can we? Time shouldn't make it count for any less.

The same goes for the other end of that stick. When we find a woman, or a group of women, or a small pocket of community that makes us feel more (upheld, respected, better in ourselves), we should call that out as well. Not only to name what it is, but to honour the women who've done the work to make it feel that way.

It isn't just a magical way of being. It comes from self-reflection. From knowing who you are at any given point. From being able to have honest, and sometimes difficult, conversations. Somebody chose to do that work, It deserves saying out loud.

This is something I think about a lot in the workshops. The circle only works because every woman in it decides, within herself, to hold space for the others. Nobody's told to. They just do. That's womanhood, re-formed, for a couple of hours on a Friday night.

So, how do we re-form it?

Back to my original question. And I'm going to hand it over to you, because I don't think it's mine to answer alone.

What should re-formed womanhood look like, for you and for all of us?

What expectations do we have of each other?

And how do we know, within it, that we're being respected and cared for, and that we're being respectful and caring in return?

I'm not sure I have the answers. And as I write this I realise it leans, marginally, towards the political side of the conversation. However, I think it's an important one. When it comes down to it, how can we navigate the transitions in our lives well and wholeheartedly if we're not also acknowledging the communities, the people and the relationships that make it possible?

We don't come through The Hollowing on our own. Not really. Somebody passes the flour.

If you've found resonance here, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Come and say what this stirred up in the comments. Naming it together is part of the work.

Stacey x