While looking up at the stars one night in February, Jane had the moment.

The moment of clarity a woman has only once in her life, where she realises she is small and weak and insignificant. It hit her hard on the head and was heavy like a man.

She was small and weak and insignificant.

Jane thought about all the decisions she made in her life that led her to the moment. Was it because she asked for almond milk? Was it her decision to walk instead of catching a taxi? Was it because of that one time in second grade when she broke a toy? Was it because her clothes asked for it? Was it simply because she was a small and weak and insignificant female?

Jane wondered what it was that made females weak as she focussed on the stars, not on the weight of her realisation crushing her small frame onto the tarmac. It was because they had vaginas, Jane decided. Vaginas are weak things; they are hidden and shy. They didn’t demand attention. Vaginas stretched and twisted and changed themselves to deal with the abuse thrown at them. Infants ripped them in half and broke their owners, but vaginas didn’t care. They’d heal themselves up and make themselves as tight and ripe as before, just asking to be hurt again.

Penises, though, they are strong. They demanded attention and were like iron rods when they wanted to be. They didn’t get hurt. Unlike vaginas, penises are a sign of inherent strength. And Jane despised it. She’d wondered many times what made her, a female, less worthy than a male. It wasn’t until the moment that she truly despised her being. She despised what it was that made her a female because that was what made her weak. It wasn’t because she was smaller than men or had weaker arms than men or a bigger chest than men. It was her vagina—the thing praised as a beautiful, powerful flower in her feminist books—that made her weak.

Jane lived her life with the moment etched onto her back in small scars she couldn’t see but could feel the crushing weight of. The moment followed her around like a dark cloud that swirled in and out of her mind, bruising the few good memories she had. Each moment of Jane’s life was classified as before and after the moment. Before represented Jane when she was stupid, naïve, and adhered to the gender rules of society. After represented Jane when she was damaged goods, broken and unfixable.

Jane had dresses and skirts, but she only wore them in the comfort of her own home. She avoided TV shows or movies with romance. When Jane ate out, she ate like a man. She picked large steaks or big burgers and chewed with her mouth open. She wore ill-fitting clothing and didn’t get her eyebrows done. She bit her nails until they hurt to touch. She didn’t shave, legs or underarms, and let her moustache hairs grow freely.

‘You’ll never find a man like that,’ her mother would say.

Jane wasn’t looking for a man. Jane was looking for herself. During the moment, a piece of Jane melted away, soaking into the tarmac like the sticky juices of betrayal from her vagina. That piece was vital to who she was, but Jane didn’t know what it was. Was it her femininity? Her naivety? Her confidence in herself?

Jane lived her life keeping the moment to herself like it was a bomb vest and the moment someone found out her thumb would release from the trigger, splattering all that she was across the walls for everyone to see.

Jane’s closest friends, Mary and Kate, often asked her what was wrong. Mary had been by Jane’s side for as long as she could remember. Kate had only known an after-the-moment-Jane, but even she asked why Jane acted the way she did.

‘Just tell us,’ Mary urged. Jane was positive that Mary already knew about the moment but had chosen not to express it out of courtesy.

The thought of Mary knowing how weak she was, how she’d asked for it, how she’d been drinking before the moment, made Jane want to vomit. Every woman knew that drinking alcohol was equivalent to asking for it; so why had Jane been so dumb? Whenever Jane heard about women like her in the news, the same words always repeated: “she was drunk”, “her clothes encouraged it”, “she allowed it to happen”.

Kate touched Jane’s hand in a way that was meant to be comforting but only made her want to crawl into a ball like a slater.

‘It’s okay,’ she’d said. ‘Just talk about it. It’ll help.’

Jane wasn’t sure it would help. The moment was a weak thing she kept hidden, much like her own vagina. It was something for her and the man whose face she’d wiped from her memory like marker from a whiteboard. Jane paused. The moment pooled in her stomach like dark sewerage that had begun to emit a smell so nasty she could no longer keep it hidden. Keeping it a secret was all she knew, but Jane realised the intimacy of sharing a secret with the man who broke her. And she didn’t want it.

Jane told them about the moment.

Jane braced herself, but releasing her finger from the trigger didn’t result in an explosion like she’d expected. Instead, it felt like the fizz of a bottle of soda when its cap is twisted. The festering gasses inside dispersed from her body in small bursts. Each time she opened her mouth, more bubbled up and out, until she was empty. Beneath it all, lost in the dark waste of her memories, Jane found the piece of herself she’d been missing: her trust in others, and herself.

And then Jane realised, women have two moments in their life. The moment when they realise they are small and weak and insignificant.

And the moment when they realise they aren’t.