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You’re right Shania, the best thing about being a woman is the prerogative to have a little fun!

After years of walking past the Rundle Mecca store, I finally bought myself a concealer. It was a daunting and confusing process, especially for a 21-year-old teenager such as myself – the talking to the staff and finding the right shade of it all. I was late to the party, I know, but as I tapped my card onto the EFTPOS machine and grabbed my neatly packaged concealer, I imagine just how excited younger me, who couldn’t wait to be an adult girl like her mother and sisters, must have felt.

I feel like it can be pretty easy to forget how wonderful it is to be a woman – what with the exceptionally violent and unequal climate it has been for us in recent years. Reading the news nowadays has felt like reading a chapter of The Handmaid’s Tale. But lately, as I catch myself halfway into stroking my mascara wand onto my eyelashes or playing dress-up at 10pm, I am reminded of the beauty of womanhood and how glad I am to be a part of it.

There’s so much about it that goes unnoticed or gets suppressed because something so quintessentially “girly” tends to get joked about by the general public. A longstanding target has been the 'fan girl' culture. I was a part of it growing up and loved every moment of it, even though some boys at school would ridicule and mock my friends and I gushing over One Direction. I didn’t think it was “lame” or “uncool” and I still don’t. I see it as a natural phase that teenage girls go through, one that connects us to generations before – my mum with Beatlemania, my sisters with NSYNC and Destiny’s Child, and my younger cousins now with BTS. 

It was fun and innocent.

The bond between sisters or female friends is one of the things that I have always cherished about being a woman. The giggles that would abrupt into belly-aching laughter, the sorrows and worries we confess to each other followed by the hugs of comfort and reassurance, and the unfiltered conversations we have about periods, social issues, relationships, our dreams, our fears, and why our acne is acting up again for the 2nd time this month. 

It’s liberating being around those who understand you deeply and who share the same experiences as you. I’m so thankful for that bond we share. 

Looking back, it saddens me how much of our girlhood was given away for the sake of trying to “fit in” or appeal to the male gaze, but it’s important to remember that there is just as much power in unapologetically being a woman too. Every time I do my makeup and skincare or put ribbons in my hair, I will be reminded of the beauty of womanhood and how glad I am to be a part of it.