What It Actually Means to Be a Woman Today

This morning began like most mornings in a house with two children. And like most mornings, it had absolutely nothing to do with Women’s Day.

One kid woke up late. The other had an opinion about breakfast. I was mentally running through a list that had already started forming before the first cup of coffee. Packing tiffin. Making sure kids manage to get to school in time. Messages to respond to. Things I had promised myself I would finish today.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, my phone reminded me that it was Women’s Day, which made me pause and wonder what exactly we are celebrating when we celebrate women.

Every year Women’s Day does this to me. It makes me stop and think about what it actually means to be a woman today.

And no, I am not talking about the polished version we see in marketing campaigns all through March. The flowers. The quotes. The discount coupons telling women to celebrate themselves by buying something. The smiling faces, the inspirational captions, the neat language of empowerment that fits perfectly inside a square Instagram post.

I am talking about something quieter. The everyday reality of being a woman.

I have written about Women’s Day before too. Usually about workplace equality, policies, the things that still need fixing. But the older I get, the more I find myself thinking about what being a woman really means. These days, I think it comes down to something far simpler.

Being a woman means a surprising amount of multitasking.

The visible kind. But also, the invisible kind. The mental kind. You know the kind I mean. The lists that are always running somewhere in the background. The remembering. The planning ahead. The small adjustments that keep life moving along. A mental filing cabinet of where everything in your house is stored, a colour coded calendar of family activities, class schedules, social events and your own work that needs to be done on a daily basis. The smooth running of the household with the ever present question – “What do we eat today?”

On paper, life often looks far more organised than it actually is. And yet when we talk about productivity, none of this usually appears in the picture. Most productivity schedules look beautifully organised on paper. Every hour accounted for. Work. Exercise. Family time. What they rarely show are the invisible tasks that keep life running in the background.

You are expected to be sensible but spontaneous. Ambitious but available. Strong but gentle. Put together but not intimidating. Care deeply about everyone else, while somehow also maintaining your own identity like a well watered houseplant in the corner.

All of this without appearing overwhelmed. Without dropping too many balls. Without letting anyone feel that the system might collapse if you stepped away for a moment.

The work that keeps life moving rarely appears in anyone’s job description. It is a full time balancing act. And at some point, most of us realise that the balance everyone talks about is slightly fictional.

Life rarely distributes itself evenly. It arrives in waves. Some waves are about career. Some about children. Some about survival. Some about rediscovering the parts of yourself you misplaced while doing all the other things. Some ask more of you than you thought you had to give.

And then there are the small, invisible negotiations. The ones that never make it into speeches or celebrations.

Holding your ground in a room. Trusting your instincts when people politely suggest you are overthinking. Continuing to evolve even when the world seems more comfortable with the older version of you.

Somewhere in the middle of writing this, a query popped up in the school WhatsApp group. But of course it did. Life, as always, continuing to organise itself in the background while I sit here thinking about what it means to be a woman today.

The truth is, most of the work of being a woman never becomes visible enough to be celebrated.

The older I get, the more I think being a woman is less about fitting into an ideal and more about learning to recognise your own voice in the noise. And more importantly, having the courage to keep listening to it.

So today, on Women’s Day, I am not celebrating some polished idea of womanhood. I am celebrating the real one.

She may not look like the version that appears in advertisements or inspirational posts. But she is real. And she is still standing.

The one who is learning. The one who is changing. The one who occasionally loses her patience, her keys, and her sense of balance, but still manages to keep moving forward anyway.

That woman, I suspect, is doing just fine.