What is a Woman?

It is difficult to be a woman today. Not for me. I am lucky enough to have all of the following: a supportive family, an advanced education, access to healthcare and medication, hope that I can acheive my goals. But as I grow older, I realize I am in the minority. Around the world, women suffer terrible atrocities. In Pakistan, Rwanda, India, Uganda, Indonesia, Afghanistan, nearly every developing nation contains women who support families, raise children, struggle to keep from falling apart while victimized.
In the future of this blog, I am planning to write about my sisters. But I cannot begin to chronical what they mean to me without proper context. In so many countries today, a household containing only daughters would be considered unlucky. Our gender would bring our parents shame in the community. Our mother would vainly and fruitlessly attempt to redeem herself in the eyes of others, our father would see contempt and disappointment in his friends' eyes. If we were Chinese, who is to say how many of us six would not even be allowed to live past a single day? If we were born into a poor Pakistani family, would we get medical care when we needed it? If were were Indian, would we can get past the gender-determining ultrasounds? If we were from Uganda, would we be forced into arranged marriages? I realize that not every woman from each of the nations I mentioned face these situations, but enough of them do to warrent the examples.
As it turned out, we were all born and raised in North America. We all were taught to read, sent to school and expected to chart our own destinys. We are six women extraordinarily lucky to be in the positions we have grown accustomed to.
We are also six women committed to improving the lives of other women who find themselves in less comfortable circumstances. I am proud of each of my sisters individually, for who they are and what they doing, but I am also proud that we all look outside ourselves to the plights of others and steel ourselves to be of use to them.
I am proud of my sisters for their self-awareness and their empathy for women everywhere. Somehow, I ended up in this phenomenal group of women. We have a bond that is deeper than any friendship. We have a love that can forgive any tensions between us. You are each such a big part of who I cam that I cannot describe myself accurately without mention of you--of us.