Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves?

Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to be themselves.

She indulged herself from time to time. It helped remind her she was truly free.

When a woman finally learns that pleasing the world is impossible, she becomes free to learn how to please herself.

When a woman truly begins playing big according to what that means to her, she becomes one, naturally.

She was a mischief, and that was a satisfaction; no longer was she a huntress of corralled game

When did you first feel like a grown woman and not a girl?” We wrote down our answers and shared them, first in pairs, then in larger groups. The group of women was racially and economically diverse, but the answers had a very similar theme. Almost everyone first realized they were becoming a grown woman when some dude did something nasty to them. “I was walking home from ballet and a guy in a car yelled, ‘Lick me!’” “I was babysitting my younger cousins when a guy drove by and yelled, ‘Nice ass.’” There were pretty much zero examples like “I first knew I was a woman when my mother and father took me out to dinner to celebrate my success on the debate team.” It was mostly men yelling shit from cars. Are they a patrol sent out to let girls know they’ve crossed into puberty? If so, it’s working.

She is a woman now, and not an idle girl, not a domestic ornament or a sexual convenience anymore.

Looking back now, it's easy to see that I had no models for the socially accepted conventional female role, which was certainly a blessing.

She was no longer examining life, but being examined by it; she had become a real person.

I am very definitely a woman and I enjoy it.

I'm very definitely a woman and I enjoy it.

Besides she liked being lonesome for a change. This freedom feeling was fine. These men didn’t represent a thing she wanted to know about.

She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.