Today is International Women’s Day 2021, an important day for recognizing women everywhere across all socially constructed divisions and arbitrarily decided upon lines. On this day it is important that we reflect on who women are and why we recognize our gender on this day. Being a woman is increasingly understood as an identity and not necessarily a gender assignment upon birth. While yes, anatomically, if you are assigned a certain body at conception by nature then you will most likely fall into the category of being female, however you may also grow to identify as a woman with time, and that does not make you any less of one.
The gender binary is blurred in 2021. For some it is clear cut, if you were born with certain body parts then you are a girl and that is the end of the story. However, as we are coming to learn increasingly with time, this is not exactly the end of the story, is it? Not only do you have to potentially have the body parts, but you have to identify as a female. And so, we are coming to learn, and we must embrace, that not all of those individuals who are women were registered as female on their birth certificate. Some women, realized with time that they were women, and then they struggled to publicly identify as a woman in society.
I often think about how this is one struggle I have not had to experience myself. I have often thought about the privilege that comes with being born into the body in which I identify as gender wise. I have often thought about what transgender women have to experience in order to simply exist in their truth. I think in 2021, it is important that we recognize that being a woman has many different meanings to many different people. While being born genetically female means encountering certain struggles, so does being born transgender. In the ever-evolving nature of 2021, a year that has seen more and more people adding pronouns next to their names on social media, it is important that we understand what being a woman actually is. With all of that being said, my experience being a woman has been a wild ride, but one that I wouldn’t give up for the world.
We are the patriarchy’s biggest fear, which makes us more powerful than even they are (whoever they may be). I wouldn’t give up my maternal nature towards others for misogynistic undertones. I wouldn’t give up my time of the month for the ability to walk where I want to, when I want to. I wouldn’t give up my breasts for the ability to travel freely in various societies without concern for my life. I wouldn’t give up anything about being a woman for any single advantage that there is to being a man. I love being a woman, hear me f*cking roar.
Sometimes. a roar is as loud as in The Devil’s Mistress.
Sometimes it is as clear as in my One Decade Later video.
Sometimes a woman has to roar as poignantly as Meghan Markle.
Sometimes it is as urgent as the words spoken by Nadia Murad.
And, sometimes it is as diplomatically delivered as by Amal Clooney at the UN.
When a woman roars the earth trembles. The soil quakes and the clouds disperse. The sun shines and the clouds downpour.
When a woman roars, light clears a path for her future, and the futures of all that came before and all who will come after her.
When a woman roars, you need not ask why she roars, but rather to listen to the frequency in which she delivers her message.
When a woman roars, she is the lioness, and all the girls who learn to use their voice join her and learn to roar when it is their time.
When a woman roars, she builds back what society has tried to strip from her, and she maintains her dignity and the dignity of her sisters forevermore.
arielle london 
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