In­ter­est­ing­ly, as I con­tem­plat­ed what I should dis­cuss about women in light of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day (IWD) this Sun­day, March 8, and how I could stay on the path of help­ing peo­ple in the way they help oth­ers, I re­alised that most of the neg­a­tive voic­es in my head be­long to women.

I will def­i­nite­ly put it down to the fact that I am in a com­mu­ni­ty with more women than men. That has to be it. While I have had many sub­stan­tial male friend­ships, they have been few­er than those with­in the sis­ter­hood.

Even as I re­flect on my fam­i­ly bal­ance, we were eight chil­dren with just two boys. And we are al­so so­cialised nat­u­ral­ly or un­nat­u­ral­ly to as­so­ciate by sex—I re­mem­ber times of se­vere chas­tise­ment, not just among fam­i­ly mem­bers but in oth­er cir­cles like school, church, et al, for hang­ing with boys and then men.

And when I showed a pref­er­ence for hang­ing out with men as I reached adult­hood, the gos­sip and la­belling—well, let me just say, in some are­nas, I have nev­er lived down the names or rep­u­ta­tion at­trib­uted to me. Even from men I dat­ed, there was this un­spo­ken rule that you could not favour a male friend.

So here I am, retelling a life shaped by bias.

Now, de­spite every­thing I may think or say about hav­ing suf­fered at the hands of women, I live ful­ly aware that there are women who will tell you they suf­fered more or worse from me. At times, I was un­rea­son­able or un­sta­ble and har­boured in­ex­plic­a­ble feel­ings of hos­til­i­ty. I know I have left a path of hurt, es­pe­cial­ly in the years when I was un­moored from the lu­cid­i­ty and self-reg­u­la­tion I now thank­ful­ly en­joy.

I ac­knowl­edge those dark times and em­brace the idea of a bro­ken me that ex­ist­ed in the time of child­hood, ado­les­cence, ma­nia, de­pres­sion, ear­ly schiz­o­phre­nia, ear­ly sex­u­al in­frac­tions, pre­men­stru­al dys­phor­ic dis­or­der, love and dat­ing, ob­ses­sive-com­pul­sive per­son­al­i­ty, preg­nan­cy, per­i­menopause, sin­gle-moth­er­ing, pe­ri­ods of scarce and wast­ed re­sources, and fi­nal­ly a prog­no­sis of bipo­lar dis­or­der and every oth­er phase and di­ag­no­sis through which I lived.

I have crossed over to the safer side of my mind and find de­light in a self-dep­re­cat­ing stance. You would hear me em­ploy laugh­ter as a de­vice to tell the sto­ry. I say jok­ing­ly, “Af­ter spend­ing all these years and dol­lars fix­ing my mind, now my mind is sta­ble; I am 63, and my body is falling apart.” This orig­i­nates from a com­fort­able place where I am very ac­cept­ing and for­giv­ing of my­self.

I al­so make amends con­tin­u­ous­ly over the years when there are op­por­tu­ni­ties and open­ness to the idea. Many peo­ple can­not sep­a­rate Car­o­line from Car­o­line when her mind is un­well and so hold on to the angst or gall I stirred.

For a long time, I too could not sep­a­rate or speak to my ill mind with au­thor­i­ty and bring it un­der sub­mis­sion. Since that time, rel­a­tives have con­tin­ued to hold me in scorn and de­ri­sion; women have de­s­e­lect­ed me, and men nev­er bur­dened them­selves to se­lect me for their kind­ness, sup­port, or shield­ing.

More re­cent­ly, I ex­am­ined whether I would have had the em­pa­thy I now have or giv­en the sym­pa­thy I now give to peo­ple had I not suf­fered a pe­ri­od of de­bil­i­tat­ing ex­is­tence.

Self-in­tro­spec­tion is a pow­er­ful teacher. I had to con­clude that I may not have been bet­ter than most peo­ple are/were with me, as I man­aged is­sue af­ter is­sue. I had to ac­cept the re­al­i­ty too, that I may need to low­er my ex­pec­ta­tions, grow thick­er skin, and be ready to for­give.

I got to think­ing that if the women who share parent­age with me are bare­ly able to whole­some­ly ac­cept me, show abid­ing love and con­tin­u­ous­ly re­new their com­pas­sion for me, why would I have ex­pec­ta­tions of oth­ers?

Thank­ful­ly, there is al­ways a sis­tah who ”sticks clos­er than a sis­ter.” To­day, I ac­knowl­edge them—you know who you are! Those women who have ac­cord­ed their pres­ence, sta­bil­i­ty, love and friend­ship, who took the blows and re­turned with gen­uine care and love.

Women who are bal­anced and in­nate­ly se­cure, who are ca­pa­ble of of­fer­ing em­pa­thy, look­ing be­yond my faults and fail­ings, and meet­ing a need for their pres­ence and pos­i­tiv­i­ty.

Bound­less.org de­scribes these women as “trust­ed com­pan­ions who pro­vide un­con­di­tion­al sup­port, ac­cep­tance, and loy­al­ty through both good and bad times.”

“True friend­ship in­volves shared ex­pe­ri­ences, hon­est com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and the abil­i­ty to for­give, of­ten de­fined by a “ride or die” men­tal­i­ty where both par­ties pri­ori­tise each oth­er’s well-be­ing and growth,” the blog con­tin­ues.

These are the women in my life who are most­ly nev­er pre­scrip­tive, in­sen­si­tive, judge­men­tal, or se­vere­ly crit­i­cal.

I ac­knowl­edge now how un­rea­son­able and un­fair it is for me to hold ex­pec­ta­tions for women with un­re­solved lives to sit down with pa­tience and sen­si­tiv­i­ty to bring con­so­la­tion to mine. I bet­ter ap­pre­ci­ate the rush to judge­ment and a swift cut­down.

The IWD 2026 theme is Give To Gain, which “em­pha­sis­es the pow­er of reci­procity and sup­port” (in­ter­na­tion­al­wom­ens­day.com).

I pray for the con­tin­u­ous courage to not shrink back from giv­ing.