Feminist Writing: Becoming a Woman by Hilary Tham

Hilary Tham’s “Becoming a Woman” highlights the receiving of maternal wisdom that only women who are going through it. This poem presents various portraits of the transition from childhood to adulthood. Becoming a woman is a rite of passage that starts with the changes of early puberty and ends with a woman’s first periods. A girl grows and changes in ways that prepare her to be able to have a baby. These changes occur in certain stages. Gender representation on female clearly takes places in this poem. The poet perhaps tells the story within her own experiences on becoming a woman. After all, it becomes necessary for a little girl going through this phase; becoming a woman, and it is someone called mother to teach her little child about becoming a woman through her own experience and from what her later mother’s told her. Then, it becomes a woman responsible, the great responsibilities carry out from generation that men can’t do - give birth. It’s an honour for a woman to give birth and it becomes mother’s responsibilities to carry out their jobs to tell their child especially girl on becoming a woman.