To be a woman is to be the vessel in which the fearful and wonderful beginning of the most precious souls you will ever know had life breathed into them.
To be a woman is to understand that God Himself appointed you alone to be the sole source of nourishment to sustain those lives when they were at their most vulnerable.
To be a woman is to be the source of infinite awe and mystery to your father, and to be loved by him in a way that he loves no one else.
A woman knows what it is to be hit with biological adulthood suddenly, at a very tender age, and in a way that nothing can really prepare her for.
To be a woman is to know what it is to have arrived at the end of the world when your first crush failed to result in marriage.
To be a woman is to remember where you were and what you were doing when you realized that you were displaying the first signs of your first pregnancy.
To be a woman is to cry just around the corner when you first left your baby, crying for you, with someone else, waiting and listening to make sure that(s)he is okay.
To be a woman is to feel like home to every other member of your family.
A woman knows what it is to make a deliberate decision to dress modestly, throwing away her shortcut to the immediate attention of a hungry eye.
A woman does in fact know what it is to do it backwards and in high heels.
A woman knows what it is to jump in and play with her Daddy and her brothers and to still feel left out, in spite of everyone's best efforts.
A woman knows what it is to scrub floors while no one is around to notice, so that they may be walked on later, and then turn around and do it again.
To be a woman is to put her own to-do list on hold, put on work clothes, and go help her husband.
A woman knows what it is to be held by her Daddy, and to know for the rest of her life that she was adored and treasured.
To be a woman is to have been at the head of your class, to have established a career by hard work, and to walk away from it, sometimes entirely and sometimes permanently, the first time you saw that baby.
A woman knows what it is to make an otherwise rational man behave like a blithering idiot.
Womanhood is not bought. It's not put on and taken off like a dress or a wig. It isn't surgically acquired. It does not reduce down to a set of pre-determined (often by men) political issues. It is not represented by its profane and irreverent self-appointed spokespeople. A woman is to be revered, protected, and honored, against her will if necessary.