By Hauwau Shehu Maikeffi
There’s something about the way a woman moves through the world. The way she carries everything, dreams, responsibilities, expectations, love, without letting any of it slip through the cracks. The way she builds, not just for herself, but for others. The way she holds space, holds hands, holds hearts.
And somehow, in the midst of it all, she keeps going.
She wakes up before the sun, the weight of the day already settling on her shoulders. There’s a child to feed, a home to hold together, a career to nurture, a world that refuses to slow down for her. She is a mother, a teacher, a doctor, a leader, a student, a sister, a daughter, all at once, all the time.
She walks into boardrooms where her voice is questioned, yet she speaks anyway. She stands in classrooms, molding young minds, even when the world tells her she is not enough. She is in hospitals, tending to the sick, while carrying exhaustion in her bones. She is on construction sites, in markets, in laboratories, on stages, in courtrooms, she is everywhere.
And she is tired. But she is also relentless.
There is no single definition of what it means to be a woman. Some are mothers, some are not. Some are chasing careers, some are choosing homes, some are doing both. But all of them, all of them, are carrying something.
Some are carrying grief. The kind that lingers in the silence between conversations, in the quiet of the night when the world has stopped asking if they’re okay.
Some are carrying dreams so heavy they wonder if they will ever have the strength to make them real.
Some are carrying love, love for their families, for their people, for themselves, for a world that does not always love them back the way it should.
And yet, through it all, they rise
It is not just about being strong. Women have never been strong because they wanted to be, they have been strong because they had to be. But beyond the resilience, beyond the sacrifices, beyond the endless balancing act of being everything to everyone, there is something else.
There is joy. The kind that sneaks up in quiet moments, a child’s laughter, a deep conversation, a stolen moment of peace.
There is power. Not in the way the world defines it, but in the way she reclaims herself. In the way she decides, day after day, that she will not shrink.
There is beauty. Not the kind found in magazines or movie screens, but the beauty of a woman who has lived, who has felt deeply, who has given and received, who has lost and still chooses to love.
Women do not just exist; they shape the world. They build families, communities, nations. They raise children and run businesses. They wipe tears and sign contracts. They carry generations in their hands and futures in their hearts.
And when they tell their stories, when they sit in circles with other women and speak their truths, when they write them down, when they whisper them to their daughters, they are not just sharing experiences.
They are leaving a roadmap. They are saying, I was here. I lived. I tried. I loved. I built something that will last.
And long after they are gone, their stories, their lives will remain. In the homes they nurtured. In the work they poured themselves into. In the children they raised. In the hearts of the people they loved.
Because a woman’s existence is never just her own. It is woven into everything she touches. It lingers. It lasts. It is felt.
Happy International Women’s Day
