I was born in Eastern Europe.

Predictably, this simple little fact has had a large impact on my adult life. For one, I can drink a lot; I was raised on one of the many diabolical nectars originating in the Pannonian Basin, one that resembles nail polish in aroma, but rivals it in terms of alcohol content. I also get angry and sad a lot – a result, some would say, of the many conflicting emotions, problematic history, and deeply melancholic nature associated with my people. I also celebrate Christmas for three days starting on December 24th, and every Easter I get soaked through thanks to an age-old tradition positing that, being the delicate flowers that they are, young girls must be watered (yes, really) in order to ensure springtime fertility. The men doing this honourable work are rewarded with carefully painted eggshells, or their chocolate counterparts in the modern age.

“I realised that I’d been thinking about feminism in terms of change, and all along it was about embracing my own identity”

Even the “fun” parts of my heritage, then, the cutesy things I share when I’m asked about my birthplace, seem at best problematic from my distanced, grown-up, and more maturely feminist point of view. But my cultural baggage has an even less sunny side, parts of which I internalised so deeply it took years for me to identify their complete incompatibility with who I’ve since become. Parts I truly wish I could simply erase from my memory but which I’ve forced myself to remember for fear of perpetuating them in some form. I remember walking to school, aged sixteen, and being told by a man that he would like to “come in my beautiful mouth”. I remember feeling disgusted, devastated, but also ashamed, confused, and guilty. I remember telling my family; their response, “well to be fair, your skirt is very short”, did not exactly help wash away those destructive emotions.

For years now, I have struggled to reconcile my love, gratitude, and respect for the wonderful people behind my upbringing with my refusal to accept their way of thinking about women. Becoming aware of the tension, and leaving my home country behind, was like remembering to unclench my jaw or inhale deep after holding my breath for a long time. I could feel the anxiety starting to take shape and by virtue of that, begin to dissipate – or rather, transform. It turned first into anger and ambition: red-hot hatred for the patriarchy coupled with the desire to fight it in the form of small-scale, personal rebellion. My skirt would be even shorter, my hair long and fiery. I’d do and say loud and outrageous things, and outdrink my male friends just to prove a point (reaping, at long last, the fruits of my booze-soaked teenage years at home). I’d also be defensive to the point of extremity, only to find that the passion behind my beliefs was lost in the desperate attempts at keeping them safe. Rage wrung the joy out of being a woman; the patriarchy had yet again triumphed.

So I decided to return to my roots. I took a look at all the positive lessons that the women in my family have taught me. My grandmother who fled the country at seventeen and ran all the way to Australia; my mother who survived a difficult divorce and bounced back from heartbreak with grace and confidence. I realised where I had gone wrong: these were stories of resilience and strength, but not of resentment. They were fuelled not by rage but by love, hope, and respect – positive and powerful emotions I could take away and put into my own idea of femininity without it feeling like an unwelcome compromise. I realised that I’d been thinking about feminism in terms of change, and all along it was about embracing my own identity, with all its imperfections and complexities. Like Simone de Beauvoir said, to be a woman is to be defined by difference; like her, I refuse to believe that this is a weakness and elect it instead as my chief strength.

“I didn’t realise every single one of my emotions would have to be colossal and overwhelming in order to be accepted”

Liberating as it may have been, this realisation didn’t make things any easier. I wanted so badly for the challenges to disappear with my passion’s return; once again I found my imagination contrasting with reality. I didn’t expect to sign up for a life of damaging irony and endless contestation when I made the conscious decision of being a feminist. I didn’t expect the snarky remarks from men about how “we’d certainly be splitting the bill at the end of the date then.” I didn’t expect the load of irritating questions about why I still wore nice clothes, put makeup on, shaved my legs and did squats if the ultimate goal of my existence was not to please men. I didn’t expect the tiring battle with other forms of feminism which were considered better, more modern, more inclusive, more perfect, than mine. I didn’t expect to have to defend my point of view, least of all from those who were meant to share it and for whom I cultivated it for so long.

In my naivety, I didn’t expect for the fight against the patriarchy to be a genuine battle. I didn’t realise that just because feminism is simple – women and men are equally valuable, albeit in different ways – it is certainly not easy. I didn’t realise every single one of my emotions would have to be colossal and overwhelming in order to be accepted as “valid” by every community because the current climate does not acknowledge lukewarm opinions about anything – if you’re in, you have to be fully in, prepared for any great sacrifice; otherwise, we don’t really need you. I didn’t expect it all to be this bloody exhausting.

But now, each time it gets difficult, I’ve learnt to think back to all those lessons in resilience, within and beyond my family. I remind myself that belief takes courage, effort, pain, discomfort, energy. I remember that it is my – our – responsibility to love and protect women not just when it’s convenient, but also, and most crucially, when it becomes a challenge to do so. I remember we have to be both on Natalie Portman’s and on Rose McGowan’s side, because, without realising, they were on the exact same side all along; the only side to take in this fight, a fight we can only win not as one, but still – together.

So this International Women’s Day, celebrate complexity and difference – celebrate being a woman, whatever that truly means to you.