When I was a young girl, I was provided with these standards and guidelines on the woman that I was supposed to become. I was told my aspirations in life were to fall in love with a man, be a mother and live in a white picket fence home providing for my husband and children. I was so young that I believed that was the path all young girls were supposed to follow.
Once I was around seventeen, I discovered that the love I was supposed to feel for a man, I felt for women.
The moment I discovered that realization, I was hit with a flood of negative emotions because I was not the woman that society wanted me to be. I believe that women are faced with that pressure everyday.
When I came out to my parents, they began defining me by who I loved rather than who I was as an individual. Suddenly my ambitions and goals were a mere memory, and I was defined by my sexuality. The big things I had accomplished such as getting into college and beginning my path into a psychology career was not big news, but the disapproval of not becoming the woman my parents intended me to be was the heart wrenching news.
My parents couldn’t open their eyes to the idea that I became the woman I never thought I could be, the woman that was honest with herself and pursued what fulfilled my happiness most. They saw my world through dull glasses, while I saw my world in rose-colored lenses because I was, for the first time in my life, happy with the woman I was with romantically. Society often tries to define women, stating that we are less if we don’t make choices that follow the strict, false and degrading guidelines provided to us in the beginning.
We as women are not seen or praised for our successes and achievements; we are only criticized for the personal choices we make that are different from what society believes is right. We as women are not defined by who we love or the personal choices we make for our own happiness and wellbeing. We are defined by our successes we have had throughout our lives.
I am in love with a woman and I am not defined by who I love.
Women will rise and embrace who we are as individuals.
Author: Abigail S. Piersall
Email: [email protected]
Author Bio: My name is Abigail Piersall, and I am an aspiring writer and psychology major.
