We daugters of Eve.

When I was little, I remember the discussions of 2 piece swim suits and---god-forbid--the bikini.

We were definitely going to hell in a hand basket.

Woman showing their bodies, flaunting them even, no modesty...what man would want such a woman.  Might as well marry a prostitute.

Then the sixty's hit full blown, with nudity on beaches, free love, drugs/sex/and rock and roll.

Doomed, definitely doomed---at least we women were.

These days there are places making it unlawful to wear a burkini--which is similar to a swimsuit from Victorian England. If their religion won't let them dress like the rest of us--what is wrong with their religion.  What kind of modern woman would allow a religion to tell them how to dress and act.

If you stand around any water cooler or sit in any work breakroom, you will hear gossip about coworkers.  If the workplace is both genders, it might get raunchy.  If it is mostly women, it will get judgemental.

Sally's hair makes her look older and Alfrieda is putting on weight, but the big one is always about sex, sex and men, sex and women, too much sex, not enough sex, needing sex, or their daughter's sex lives or their mother's sex  lives and on and on.  And it is never complimentary.  And they are more judgemental about that than men.

Women expect other women to act like a proper woman.  I have heard 60 year old women refer to themselves as "good girls" and have heard 30 year old women referred to as sluts because they are single and go clubbing on weekends.  We talk about each other as if how to be a proper woman is a very specific thing with very specific rules.

We women want our women to be independent, but married.   We want our women to be fashionable but not too sexy.  We want our women to be ambitious and to always have a clean house and take good care of the kids.  And we want every woman to want children.

A woman that accepts a faith that places her in a submissive role is not acceptable, although a good christian woman accepts her place.  A woman that has children without ever marrying can never be accepted into the group of permanent "good girls" although if that same woman marries later its like that never happened.  Some of the strongest women I have ever met raised families alone and never married. 

And woman that are overweight but never talk about dieting, that wear their hair in an easy to care for pony tail or cut short---hopeless.  Did they wax.  Do their hands look too big or to work-worn.  Is there make-up polished.  Is it too heavy?  Is too little?

No one is safe from the judging until they are dying, and then only if their lifestyle couldn't possibly have caused the illness.

I have been told that women caused original sin.  That we are the weaker sex because of this.  That we need protected and need pampered and need guidance and need firm rules of conduct.  I have been told our shallowness is hormonal or in the DNA or is a result of our inborn role as mothers.

Yet every day I see women that are hunters, marksmen, athletes, CEO's, criminals, terrible mothers, great spiritual leaders, and on and on, like a list of every possible job and role a human can have.

Why do we try so hard to define women.  Why do we try to put them into a box that meets our standards.  Why do women do that to each other?  Why?  Why?  Why?

And why do we worry so much about how women dress and what they look like and what set of sexual mores they live by.

There is so much more to being a woman than how a woman looks.

There is so much more to being a woman than her sexual functions.

Maybe we need to stop being the foot on the head of the women around us.  If our partner is like that, we do not have to agree with him (or her).  If our religion is like that, we do not have to participate in that part of the religion.  If our coworkers can find no other way to feel better about themselves; if our relatives can't stop being that judgemental person, we do not have to join in.

We are all women, just women.  And there is no one way to be that.

Being a woman is just being a person.  That is a journey that is hard enough without a bunch of silly superficial and arbitrary rules.