Thoughts on adulthood

There's a post about "manhood" here.

Hat tip to Technoshaman for pointing it out, by the way.

I'm going to reprint the main points here:

- Responsibility: Owning your shit, and dealing with it in ways that preferably do not stir up more shit.

- Accountability: Being adult enough to say, "Yeah, i did such-and-such" - for good and ill - and accept the consequences (again, both good and ill) of doing it.

- Balance: Knowing where to step, and how to compensate when you step wrong.

- Perspective: Looking out so you don't step in shit to begin with... and realizing that you inevitably will.

- Wisdom: Learning from the previous experiences.

- Courage: Not the lack of fear (which is insane), but the ability to move past fear when need be.

- Confidence: Knowing your worth - not the things you take from others, but the things you earn within yourself.

- Vulnerability: The ability to touch, feel and share... and yet survive to prosper from it.

- Protectiveness: The defense of those who cannot presently defend themselves... because you're occasionally one of them, too.

- Restraint: Because dogs do NOT actually eat dogs unless something's seriously wrong with them.

- Compromise: Understanding that it's not All About You(TM) comma dammit.

- Flexibility: Because if the previous sentiment is not obvious already, Life will see to it that it becomes so.

- Generosity: Not indulgence (or self-indulgence) but a willingness to share, be shared with, and say "yes."

- Boundaries: Giving, getting and creating structure through the ability and willingness to say "no.(***)"

- Love: Affectionate reverence for the world that is, not a fantasy of what it must look like before you can affectionately revere it.

- Respect: Both given to others and earned through one's actions.

- Passion: Acting as though life is not a spectator sport. It is only when you choose to watch rather than to do.

- Resilience: Because, as the Tao Te Ching says, "neither heaven nor earth is humane."

- Compassion: Because it falls to us to be humane in its place.

It's not about being a man.  It's about being an adult.  One place--one place I had to change something before it could apply to women.  (It's italicized.)  I don't have anything against these as things for both men and women to strive for--I laud them, in fact.

But----I do have a problem with equating "adult" and "man."  For reasons I trust are obvious with a modicum of thought.

Yours, A Woman.