International Women’s Day takes place every year as a way to celebrate women and has become a focal point for the women’s rights movement. The Spring 2018 voyage acknowledged the worldwide holiday by holding a ship-wide woman’s march and an international women’s panel. International Women’s Day fell the day after Neptune Day, when many women made the decision to shave their head. These women give their reflections on femininity and what it means to be a woman in the modern world.
Fijare Plous
“I’m not new to this. I was knighted as a shellback when I was 12. This time, I actually got to do the knighting. The first time, I didn’t know what to expect. I did it, and it felt like letting go. I felt free. I’ve been traveling my whole life, and I’ve been used to different situations, and trying new things, and it’s something that I’ve always loved, and doing that was really incredible for me. Watching it grow back was probably the best part. I loved the different stages…Women see other women on billboards that have long, luxurious hair, and that’s kind of the standard. You don’t see a lot of pixie cuts and other things. I’ve talked to a lot of people, and they say, ‘Oh, you’re so brave,’ but I don’t really understand it. To me, it’s like, “Yeah, it’ll grow back.” It’s like cutting your nails. They’re the same thing. And, actually, they’re made of the same stuff. It’s just another part that will grow back. The hair that I had was three years in the making, a little past shoulder length…I think being a strong woman is being expressive. It’s being who you want to be, it’s not letting other tell you to settle for less. My grandma, who’s close to 80, walks 6 miles every morning. She was a black belt in karate. She’s still got jet-black hair. She would probably be my definition of a strong woman…Hair doesn’t hold a lot of significance for me, but it really is a way to express that I’m cool with myself. This is who I am. I love color, I love doing things that people don’t expect. I don’t want to have the same look as every other woman in the world. I want to be my own person. I’m not defined.”
Maite Correa
“I don’t feel any attachment to [my hair]. Being a woman, and knowing that women don’t do this, I thought it was a way of just being different. If it had been shaving my eyebrows, I wouldn’t have liked that. I’m way more attached to my eyebrows than I am to the rest of my hair… Being a strong woman is just knowing what you want without letting others change who you are, your values especially. I think that International Women’s Day should be every day… I think I challenge traditional female expectations every day. From the perspective of a bisexual woman, and because I’m married to a woman, I feel like there’s expectations about how I’m supposed to act and how I’m supposed to look like for both the lesbian community and the heterosexual community, and probably the bisexual community. I think I’m challenging all of them, or none of them, at the same time, because I don’t think I fit any of the expectations because I don’t fit any of the sexual preferences that are usually expected of me.”
Joelle Powe
“Femininity is the force that makes you feel like a princess, which is actually a warrior. It makes you feel like a mother. It makes you protect like a lioness who would kill a lion for her cubs. And it’s that dynamic force that takes on whatever form it needs to be in each moment. It is unlabeled. It is dynamic, it is diverse, it can be whatever it needs to be. That’s what femininity is. It is the fire… I feel privileged here past the boundaries of my physical self, as a woman of color, which is the privilege of my education. I feel rich, when I have less than most, because of my education, before the ship and on the ship while traveling the world. I feel wealthy in my knowledge, and I take power in that. I feel a privilege over others because of the knowledge that I have… I’m so happy to be here seeing the other beautiful women and the shape of their brains. We affirm each other.”
