Celebrating being a woman!

This year's international women’s day is a very special one for me because I will be a mom very soon – a mother of a daughter. I don’t know if that is the reason why I was thinking about my womanhood so much on this specific women’s day – more than on any other one before – or if it was just because I am at a certain point on my journey to self-acceptance. Because, as I realized, a lot about me accepting myself is also about me accepting myself as a woman.

The supposedly male qualities have been easy to be proud of for me

I was always proud of certain qualities of mine – qualities that are thought of as more male qualities. Like having an opinion and voicing it, being extroverted, being brave, or standing up for myself but also superficial things like being good at math or having a good sense of direction.

That is not very ladylike!

I remember that my father once said to me when I was a little girl: „That is not very ladylike“ (in German: "Das ist aber nicht sehr Ladylike") and I replied to him „I am not a lady!“ ("Ich bin keine Lady!"). There is also that story about me as an even younger girl asking my older brother if he could please tell me when I would get that specific body part I was apparently missing. He assured me that it would come with time. Spoiler: it didn’t.

The supposedly female qualities I wanted to hide

A bit like that missing body part, there have always been qualities of mine, that I wanted to hide: like being emotional or being very, very chatty. In fact, those have been qualities that didn’t make things easier for me as well. And if you would ask around I am sure, a lot would say that those qualities are regarded as typical female ones.

Something is changing…

I have to tell you, though. Something is changing now. That little „un-ladylike“ girl has grown up to be a woman that is becoming more and more proud to be just the way she is – without a label or any other outside opinion on how she is supposed to be.

I came to not only accept but love my supposedly female qualities.

I love that I am emotional. I love that I talk a lot (I mean, not everybody has the skill to put their thoughts into words as quickly as I do, right?). I love how empathetic and caring I am and how I always want to help others and fix things. For me today those supposedly typical female qualities are what make me special.

Being a woman and being a good leader because of it

And I also think: Those are the qualities that make me a great „leader“, too: To be caring and deeply driven by the desire to create a surrounding for my team where they can do their best work and be truly happy. To be empathetic and therefore able to understand how my colleagues feel and anticipate what they might need.

You know: That sometimes makes me wonder why there aren’t more female leaders out there yet. I think the world would benefit so much from humans with those beautiful supposedly female qualities in leadership positions. And I think the male leaders who are missing these qualities (of course a lot of men also have them) can probably benefit a lot from tapping into those.

Celebrating being a woman

So for me this day this year means that I am just very happy and very proud to be a woman. And you can’t even believe how extremely happy and proud Timo and I are to be parents to a little girl very soon!

So today, I am celebrating being a woman!