Calling all Women: why we need to acknowledge we’re different to men.

Today, I felt like doing a different kind of post.
Especially for women.
On something I’m really passionate about.

It’s about acknowledging our differences to men.
I think that because we’ve fought so hard for equality
we’ve had to erase the parts of our experience that ‘complicate’ the debate,
or sadly, issues that can be used against us.
Such as, the basic fact that we have hormones
which alter the way we think, feel & act throughout our menstrual cycle.

A part of me finds this really painful to acknowledge.
And I’m imagine that’s true for many women.
It can feel like we’re betraying ourselves,
and all of womankind.
It can feel like we’re taking a step closer to declaring women are changeable creatures.
Not to be trusted.
Half mad.

And yet I really strongly believe that if we turn away from the truth,
our unique biology,
and try and deconstruct this with our minds,
we betray our bodies.
We are then unable to appropriately care for ourselves.
This kind of feminism doesn’t really serve us.
It has been created all around men,
and it’s about staying as close to their blueprint for life as possible.
But trying to be like men doesn’t really serve us as women.

Recent research that has shown women need more sleep than men.
Women also have more mood swings, known as ‘PMS’, which seem to be caused by a drop in hormones, namely estrogen.

Our needs are different.
So we will need to care for ourselves in different ways.
We will probably need more sleep.
We will also probably need to be more attuned to our emotional needs, in order to care for ourselves during the phase just before our menstrual cycle when we get PMS (known as the Luteal Phase).

For women who want to learn more about how to care for themselves, particularly when their hormones can most affect their mood (Luteal Phase) I can heartily recommend these killer books:

Optimised woman – Miranda Grey
Woman Code – Alisa Vitti
The Wild Genie – Alexandra Pope

And as general essential reading for all women I go wild for:

The Women Who Run with Wolves – Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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