Womanhood has a unique way of unfolding in every woman’s life. These journeys are made up of different stories, dreams, and challenges. None are likely to be linear, and factors including race, ethnicity, sexuality, and socio-economic backgrounds are intrinsic to any individual experience.
However, some parts of womanhood feel like a communal bond that transcends generations and cultures, connecting women through shared experiences and common goals. It's in the wisdom passed down from loved ones and the unspoken understanding among women who've walked similar paths.
Femininity is an intricate, elusive blend of strength and vulnerability, resilience and tenderness. This collection of quotes illuminates the inherent and complex beauty of an array of experiences, as told by women themselves.
Anything may happen when womanhood has ceased to be a protected occupation.Virginia Woolf
Women are the real architects of society.Harriet Beecher Stowe
Here is my wish and my desire and my pledge as well: that we remember our true nature and our womanhood. That we own and know that we are more than our bodies and yet our bodies are these sacred, beautiful, rhythmic houses for us.Tracee Ellis Ross
Some of us [women] are becoming the men we wanted to marry.Gloria Steinem
Selfless women make for an efficient society but not a beautiful, true, or just one. When women lose themselves, the world loses its way … What we need right now is more women who have detoxed themselves so completely from the world’s expectations that they are full of nothing but themselves.Glennon Doyle
To be a woman is to be warbound, knowing all the odds are stacked against you — and never giving up in spite of it.Amanda Lovelace
How does a girl become strong? How does she enact change? How does she grow into a strong woman? It begins with a step that sounds simple, but isn’t. She finds her voice. A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman.Melinda French Gates
It’s the fire in my eyes, / And the flash of my teeth, / The swing in my waist, / And the joy in my feet. / I’m a woman / Phenomenally.Maya Angelou
Always remember the most important Rule of Beauty. “Who cares?”Tina Fey
No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half of its citizens.Michelle Obama
Women don’t need to find their voices; they need to be empowered to use [them] and people need to be urged to listen.Meghan Markle
A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture, and transform.Diane Mariechild
Do not live someone else's life and someone else's idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you.Viola Davis
Featured image credit: Jack Mitchell/ Archive Photos via Getty Images
