what is the essence of being a woman?

There is a movie titled "M. Butterfly" which is a satire on the opera "Madame Butterfly". I thought that the main character had said it best. She asks another woman, "Why are women not allowed to be on stage?" And the otehr replied, "Because they don't want women on stage." (Or something along those lines). The main character responded, "Because only men can define what a perfect woman is." It's still a man's world out there. And when we try to define ourselves as women, all we have to fall back on are texts written by men (bible and the like), media run by men, and a society that is run by men. So maybe the real question should be, how would we women like ourselves to be defined?

Is there an essence to being a woman? Being a woman is biological, the essence is the person within, the spirit within oneself which is not based on the gender of the physical form, but on the behavior.

That is such a hard question (and I just realized how much of a beauty queen start that was hehe) but I think the essence of being woman is trying to find that natural balance of being a vunerable creature because we can be so emotional, so caring, so thoughtless, and so giving. But also being strong, holding people up, being the mature one a lot of times in a relationship, so strong to give birth ( i haven't but I still would love to see a man strong enough to do it, and I mean a man born a man do it), raise a child,, and still be beautiful on top of everything. The essence of woman is strength, preserverence, and beauty. In any and every situation. That is it.

Not taking part in beauty paegents!