The Circle of Life: One Woman's Unique Journey It was 1952; the location was Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. After 35 hours of breathing, pushing and exhausting, a seven-pound baby is placed in the arms of a new mother. Moments before, the doctor had exclaimed: “It’s a girl! The second the mother heard the proclamation, her mind began to wonder. Who will she be? Will she be intelligent? Will it be soft? Will she be strong? Will she be right? Will she be loved? Will she be beautiful? Will she be a wife? Will she be a mother? The mother looked into her new daughter's eyes and felt, in the midst of this immense joy, fear. Would her baby’s cohort be the ones to push for change? Will her opportunities forever be limited by her gender? Will she also be sensitive to the daily health problems that women suffer? The mother took a breath: “Her name is Emma. » She looked into the baby's eyes again and thought: her life will be full of challenges and beauty. She will take it without problem and I will guide her as best I can. She will be a woman like any other but she will make a difference, however small, in this world. Years passed and the mother saw her newborn transform into a little girl. She dressed her daughter in beautiful dresses and floral tops. She put bows in his hair and taught him kindness and what it was to be a woman. As her daughter became a preteen, they began discussing the world around them. The mother read an excerpt from the newspaper to Emma about Eleanor Roosevelt and her role as chair of the Commission on the Status of Women (Yoder, 2013, 98). They watched films with the glamorous Audrey Hepburn and talked about how she could be both feminine and strong (Diamond, 2005). Emma took everything in the middle of a paper...... ext (Yoder, 2013, 120). Her life had indeed been strewn with pitfalls, but from these trials came strength and in this strength she found beauty. References Abrams, LS (2003). Contextual variations in young women's gender identity negotiations. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 27, 64-74. Calasanti, T.M., & Slevin, K.F. (2001). A gender perspective on old age. Gender, social inequalities and aging (Pp. 13-28). New York: AltaMira. Diamond, L. M. (2005). A new vision of lesbian subtypes: stable or fluid identity trajectories over an 8-year period. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 29, 119-128. Shields, L. and Sommers, T. (1980). Older Women's League. Retrieved from http://www.owl-national.org/Yoder, J.D. (2013). Changes throughout the life course. Women and Gender Make a Difference (4th ed.) (Pp. 97-122, 279-280). New York: Sloan Editions.