A Strong and Beautiful woman

The woman I am going to introduce you to today is a young Polish girl named Katarzena. She was born and raised in Poland but decided to come to the United States of America when she was 25 years old. She grew up in a small village of the North West of Poland, close to the Russian border. When she was 19 years old, her father died and it represented a crucial moment for her as a woman. This is the time in her life that we are going to talk about in this interview.

What does being a woman mean to you?
To me being a woman means being able to combine warmth and strength. As a woman you are the symbol of love and affection. Your basic function is to bear children and to raise by giving security, love and affection. But a woman is not only this, a woman is also a very strong individual that is challenged in her daily life. In the temporary times we have seen a lot of women fighting for their rights, the feminist type of women. A woman to me is someone who can be both successful in her private life and in her professional one. Being a woman does not only restrict you to your basic function but it is also about being able to manage a wide range of different tasks.

Do you see yourself as a real woman?
Yes. I think I can combine my femininity with my career life. I enjoy being a woman by being pretty and attractive, just like every other woman, but I also enjoy pushing myself to learn and to become successful. I do not only want to be a pretty girl. I want people to look at me and listen to what I have to say and think I am smart. Looks isn’t everything.

What episode of your life challenged you as a woman?
The death of my dad, for sure. After my father died I had a weird dream that really shocked me, and that has stayed in my mind ever since. I guess we can say it was the awakening of sensuality. It may sound strange that the death of my father was the starting point of my life as a woman, but it pretty much was. One night I dreamed of myself living this life of an attractive and desirable woman. Men would look at me and want to be with me. I had never experienced anything like this before. I had never thought of myself as a woman that men would look at with greedy eyes. I always had a very naïve vision of life. The only man in my life was my dad. But after he was gone I noticed that other men looked at me differently. It was very challenging for me to realize I could be sexually attractive. Growing up in a small village in Poland, it was taboo to talk about sex, so young women were not really aware of their sexuality. The death of my father was a big trauma in my life, and it brought a lot of different feelings to me. This episode of my life, however tragic it was, was definitely a moment of awakening to womanhood. I can say that from that time on, my vision of life has changed completely, I was no longer a child but a grown woman.