by Katrin Surkan
She lifts the tray gently from the hot stove, careful not to burn her fingertips through the potholder she crocheted in college. Her seven-year-old comes sneaking over to snatch a fresh cookie, drawn by the smell of chocolate chips permeating the house. The tea kettle whistles just as her husband walks in the door with a sigh. He thumps his satchel down on the floor as he falls into the dining room chair with a grin. She just catches his eye as she nudges her son’s hand away with an elbow. She turns around with a smile.
The student culture at Hillsdale suggests womanhood is the “stewarding” of the world, as Genesis puts it. But Hillsdale students’ perspectives on the creation and nurturing implicit in “stewarding” leave significant room for interpretation regarding the how. Usually, this has become the question of “housewife or girlboss?” Yet it is this simplification which stunts our ability to become the best woman each of us could become. It is our stories and experiences that provide us with the answer to the question of how we choose to act. Only when we take responsibility for our lives can we make the most of our unique abilities to steward, to create, to nurture, and to love. “Womanhood” should be recognized as every woman’s lifetime pursuit of creating and nurturing goodness in the world as she feels called to do.
The student culture at Hillsdale suggests womanhood is the “stewarding” of the world, as Genesis puts it.
Recent graduate and Hillsdale local Lily Epstein recalls how her conversations with women on campus about the future tended to focus on the two main options for a woman between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.: does she want to be a housewife or a girlboss? And they seem, implicitly, mutually exclusive. After all, discussing balance in life—especially in the future—is difficult. Of all the subsequent questions that arise when asking, “how to be a woman?”, one of the hardest to tackle often is, “what about women who hope to balance a family and a career?”. Lily mentions Proverbs 31 as the biblical example of an ideal wife who works hard and loves her family, spending her time serving her community, her family, and her business. Hillsdale students know they aspire to create and nurture well; however, I think most of these conversations leave out the inherent differences between every woman.
What about women who hope to balance a family and a career?
Let me define my terms.
By “create,” I mean any action that brings to life our imaginations. This may be as small as organization on a desk or as monumental as a child. It may be as abstract as decorating a home or as concrete as designing a parking lot. Perhaps we create something as frivolous as a daisy chain or as practical as a project proposal for the team. The lasting creations of our souls add to the overall goodness of the world.
“Nurture” I define as any act of love. The object of the love will vary, and a woman might love the object for her sake or for its own sake. We nurture out of a desire to see something flourish and grow. We want to see good things improve. We work to see broken things heal. Nurturing, too, stewards goodness.
Being a woman lies in the innate drive to create and nurture, but I believe this broad calling applies differently to every individual. In her hopes and dreams, a woman finds the direction and drive needed to pursue her own vocation of womanhood. In her talents and ingenuity, a woman holds the resources needed to fulfill them. Each woman’s gifts and ideals guide her towards the part of the world where she can do the most good; becoming a woman means becoming more yourself. In the words of Lily, “You can practice today being a woman. And that would be good.”
You can practice today being a woman.
Fundamentally, womanhood is the dedication of a woman to stewarding good in the world in her own way. She might do good in the workplace, at home, or in a balance of both, for she can do it anywhere. No woman is called to the same life within one single sphere, for our value lies not in our sphere but in ourselves. Hillsdale women speak too little of this breadth of womanhood, limiting themselves. We talk about the Career Woman and the Housewife, but none is the Career Woman or the Housewife without individual flair and flavor. Instead of discussing which sphere we prefer, let us talk about how we nurture and create. Let us talk about becoming a woman.
The woman turns around and grins warmly at her husband, eager to hear the stories of the day. She tousles her son’s hair teasingly, remembering the way her mother used to ruffle her own frizz whenever she would come home from working the night shift. She pulls the source book for her master’s thesis out from under a stack of cookbooks and Good Night, Moon, making a mental note to study after the little one goes to bed. She smiles fondly at the life she has made.
Katrin Surkan is a senior studying economics and Latin.
Hillsdale Forum 