Welcome: Why this newsletter
Issue #00: "Where do I begin?"
Note: This newsletter was started on December 4, 2020. The date does not match the date of this post because it just took me 2 months to gather the nerves to get started!
Hello ji,
Welcome to Womaning in India!
I am Mahima and I launched this newsletter, Womaning in India, on 4 December 2020, my 35th birthday.
Basically, this is my literary mid-life crisis.
As I complete three and a half decades of walking this planet in a woman's body, I have come to two realizations.
One: I have wasted way too much of my time here watching TV.
Two: Half the world's population - men - have virtually no idea what the everyday life of the other half is like. Even the most progressive of men out there would be shocked if they had to walk a mile in women's shoes.
And not just because women's shoes are approximately as comfortable as kidney stones.
Two more things I believe in.
One: People - men and women - are mostly decent and good.
Two: Stories are power.
Together, these two beliefs inspired me to start this newsletter - a chronicle of women’s stories.
When I talk to a woman for this newsletter, I ask her to tell me about a chapter of her life that she experienced very differently because of being a woman.
Ask any woman this question, and she will say: "Where do I begin?"
From walking down the street to taking a bus.
From getting married to staying single.
From dating to parenting.
From cooking dinner at home to making a presentation at work.
From interviewing for jobs to quitting jobs.
Virtually every activity that makes up our lives is lived differently by men and women.
Why subscribe?
Subscribers will get access to weekly stories, delivered right to your inbox. A new issue of the newsletter comes out every Monday.
All Womaning subscribers - free and paid - get access to all the content I write here.
The very vision I started writing Womaning was to help spread these messages and stories as wide as possible. So I have made a choice not to paywall any content.
However, Womaning in India remains a labour of love, which I have done for almost two years for no payment at the time of writing this.
So if you would like to support my work by either taking a paid subscription or buying me a coffee for an amount of your choosing, I would be very grateful!
Thank You
I cannot express in words the gratitude I feel towards the amazing women who opened the windows of their hearts and allowed me the privilege to take a peek inside.
I write this newsletter to share that peek with you.
I hope these stories make you laugh and cry. I hope they make you think.
I hope they teach us to be a little kinder to one another.
Most of all, I hope they make a difference.
See you next Monday. And many many Mondays after that!
Happy Reading!
❤️