On Becoming A Woman or Why JC Penny Makes Me Shudder a Bit

So my daughter asked me the other night when she would become a woman.  Given her previous disgust at being a girl, I was actually excited by this question, thinking that we may have turned a corner. 

Then came the flashback--Summer of 1977, JC Penny dressing room, Medford, OR.  I explain to my mother that 'something happened'...she gets all flustered, runs out (leaving me in the dressing room I might add with no explanation for 20 minutes) to a store to buy "something", comes back, we do 'something' and we all leave.  It's over.  Thank God.  Then we get into the street and my Dad gives me a hug and says, "I'm so proud of you, you are a woman now".

At the time I was just to embarrased to say anything--much less think this whole thing through.  As the years went by my thoughts were mainly centered around "JC Penny?"  I mean seriously,  JC Penny?  We had to have the whole giant pad discussion in a JC Penny?  Not to mention the fact that I learned that I couldn't use tampons until after I was married...for "obvious reasons".  Actually, at the time they weren't that obvious to me I am embarrased to say. I can laugh now, in a crazy high-pitched way, but at the time...

Now, faced with this question from my daughter (who had just turned seven) I realized on some level I had been thinking it through over the years and the fact was I didn't want  to give that answer--because I think that answer is complete and utter shite actually. Pure bunk  I wasn't a woman just because my body had begun to complete certain biological changes.  I also didn't become a woman when I had sex for the first time (sorry Regency Romances).  Or had my first orgasm.  Or fell in love.  Or had my heart broken.  Or broke someone's heart. Or really fell in love. Or really, really fell in love. Or got married.  Or had a child.  Or another child. Or sent someone I love away.  Or when I welcomed him home. Or in the million other moments in between these. 

I don't understand the"tah dah-I am now a woman" moment. I do understand one of my favorite characters, Margaret Simon in Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (on the Banned Book list, btw) wanting to feel more womanly by getting her period. I get that idea, a moment/experience/event that is of feeling something more in terms of what you already are.  I'd be interested in hearing from other women on this though, but for me, I don't believe in the  "exact moment" theory of womanhood. 

But of course it did happen somewhere in the midst of or in the culmination of time between 1977 JC Penny and This Minute.  Somewhere in there or along the way, woman became more than a modifier...just like mother, wife, daughter or employee.  And like each of those titles, I know there were moments where I felt more of or less of a woman. I also know there were/are/will be moments when I feel I am the woman I was meant to be--however I define it.  And that's the thing I want to teach my daughter--that's it not about when you become a woman, but what type of woman you become.  And, for once I'm not turning to books (only because I did once and I found the group of books telling me  how to be the woman he wants, the woman God wants, a woman with a voice, a boss, not a bitch, happy, Mrs Potato Head, Barbie, sexy, fabulous, rich, thin, good, bad to be a tad overwhelming and angst-creating to say the least). 

So, instead of telling my daughter when, I asked her what kind of woman she wanted to be.  She said she wanted to be the kind with boobs--and a motorcycle.  "Awesome", I said.