Women's Month has a way of asking a lot of us when I take a moment to indulge my thoughts on it.

Every August we're reminded that women are strong, resilient and unstoppable. We celebrate the women who came before us, the ones breaking barriers now, the ones balancing careers, raising children, caring for parents, building businesses and somehow still remembering everyone's birthday, effortlessly. We applaud the multitasking, the emotional labour, the endless capacity to keep going.

Sometimes I wonder how much of being a woman is inherited. Not our eye colour or the shape of our smile, but the quieter things. The instinct to apologise before speaking. The habit of putting everyone else's needs ahead of our own. The feeling that rest has to be earned and that saying no requires an explanation. 

The natural habit of always having tissues in your bag. The way we text our friends to make sure they got home safely. The way we compliment strangers in bathroom mirrors because we know what it's like to need to hear something kind. It’s these kinds of thoughts and acts that are so seamlessly passed from one woman to another, often without words.

There are so many things I certainly don't remember learning, many of which are beautiful, caring and beneficial, while others could do with an interrogation and unlearning. Either way we somehow, we wake up one day fluent in them all.  

We inherit stories of remarkable women who kept going despite impossible circumstances. We admire their resilience, as we should. But somewhere along the way, it feels like strength and resilience stopped being something to celebrate and became something we quietly expected of ourselves.

Of course, it's a beautiful sentiment, but this time of year makes me wonder if we've confused celebrating women with celebrating how much they're capable of carrying.

It seems like strength has become our default setting. Somewhere along the way, being called "strong" stopped feeling like a compliment and started feeling like an expectation.

When I take a moment to think about the women I admire the most, it's the women that aren't remarkable because they never fall apart. They're remarkable because they keep choosing themselves, often in small, quiet ways that no one applauds. They leave relationships that no longer fit. They ask for help. They change careers in their thirties, forties or fifties. They decide not to have children, or they decide they do want them. They learn to please themselves rather than please quite literally everyone and anyone else.

It's interesting but sadly not surprising that those moments rarely make headlines. They aren't the stories Women's Month campaigns are built around. But I think they're worth celebrating all the same.

We've spent generations teaching women how to be everything for everyone else. We learn to anticipate other people's needs before our own. We apologise instinctively. We soften our opinions so they're easier to receive. We become experts in making ourselves smaller, quieter or more accommodating, often without even noticing we're doing it.

And then one day we wake up and realise we've become fluent in caring for everyone except ourselves.

Maybe that's why choosing yourself can feel strangely uncomfortable. Not because it's selfish, but because it's learnt unfamiliarity. So when you take a moment to ask yourself what you want before asking what everyone else needs, rest without needing to justify it, change your mind simply because you want to, or take your pleasure seriously, it should not feel like a radical act. It should feel completely and utterly inherent.

I hope the next generation of women grows up believing that pleasure isn't something you earn once everything else is done. I hope they know it's supposed to exist alongside ambition, responsibility and care for others. That choosing joy isn't frivolous. It's part of a life well lived.

And don't get me wrong, this is definitely not an argument for perfection, nor a praise towards the mostly toxic 'we can do it all' mentality. No one wakes up every day overflowing with an abundance of confidence, energy, motivation, productivity, self-love blah blah blah. We all have mornings where our reflection feels unfamiliar, weeks where work consumes us, seasons where we forget the things that make us feel like ourselves.

Being a woman isn't about reaching some final state of empowerment. It's about allowing yourself to keep evolving without apologising for it.

So this Women's Month, I hope we celebrate more than strength and resilience.

I hope we celebrate softness. Curiosity. Boundaries. Joy. I hope we celebrate women who are still figuring things out, women who changed their lives later on in life, women who have learned that saying no is sometimes the kindest thing they can do for themselves.

And while we're celebrating, I also want to say thank you. Thank you to the women who have quietly looked after other women. The friend who comes to the bathroom with you. The colleague who makes sure your idea gets the credit it deserves. The stranger who tells you your label is popping out of your dress. The women who check us when we need to be checked. The friend who sends a "Did you get home okay?" text. The women who have reminded us, in countless ordinary moments, that we're never doing this alone.

Most of all, I hope we remember that our value has never been measured by how much we do or endure. We are worthy of care, rest, love and pleasure long before we've earned them.

Here's to all of us. Not because we're extraordinary every day, but because we are wonderfully and beautifully human. And that has always been more than enough.