When We Say “Women are the Same Around the World”

“Women are the same around the world,” the speaker said with a smile from beneath the lights on the platform. Her pants were ironed into a perfectly straight crease, falling just high enough to reveal creamy leather mules. She stood tall, shoulders poised confidently for the cameras that would capture the moment for social media. Her smooth hands and polished manicure illustrated her point as she made a broad sweeping gesture and said, “women around the world,” inviting the audience to follow the arc of her open palm. With practiced eye contact, she convinced nearly every listener that women everywhere are, indeed, the same.

I wanted to believe her. It sounded hopeful—even generous. But something inside me quietly resisted. I knew enough women, and I had met enough women around the world, to know that while we share something profoundly important, we are not, in fact, the same.

I admit there are many things women share. But everything is not one of them. So why do we say that?

Women Around the World are the Same

• Every woman is made in God’s image.
• Every woman is fearfully and wonderfully made.
• Every woman has access to a heavenly Father who loves her.
• Every woman enters the world bearing both immeasurable dignity and a sinful nature.
• Every woman lives in a world touched by sin, where pain and disappointment are real.
• Every woman carries a longing to be known, loved, and to love in return.
• Every woman is drawn toward peace, beauty, and meaning.
• Every woman has the capacity for joy and sorrow, endurance and sacrifice.
• Every woman has gifts that make her unique and strength that makes her human.

“So God created mankind in his own image… male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14).

Other than those sacred truths, women are not the same in nearly as many ways as we are alike.

So why do we keep saying women are the same around the world when our lives are so profoundly different? I have said it myself.

Why Do We Say Women are the Same?

I wonder if saying women are the same around the world sometimes relieves my discomfort more than it reflects reality? If we are all the same, I don’t have to wrestle with the uncomfortable truth that my life has been shaped by blessings many women will never experience.

Understanding another woman requires listening and looking long enough to see past first impressions. The longer I hear and see and understand, the more likely I am to become uncomfortable. I begin to see my own life more honestly, and I discover that I am smaller in the world than I once imagined.

It is not only our exteriors that differ—our creases, our shoes, our glosses, our presentations. Our interiors differ as well. How could a woman who has fled war, watched loved ones violated, awakened each morning to degradation, lived as a captive in her own home, or raised daughters knowing they may inherit the same suffering be unchanged by those experiences? How could her inner world be identical to mine?

How are Women Around the World Different?

The things that happen around us shape what happens within us.

Trauma shapes us. Safety shapes us. Opportunity shapes us. Poverty shapes us. None of these erase the image of God within us, but they profoundly shape the women we become.

Yes, every woman faces hardship. But to insist we are all the same can become a way of refusing to see the realities our sisters carry.

I have sat with remarkable women whose hands were rough and whose feet were cracked and calloused. Their shoulders were poised, not for photographs, but for carrying heavy burdens and water for miles. They have creases too—around their eyes and across their cheeks. Their palms move rhythmically, not to emphasize a speech but to scatter flies from the faces of their children. They make eye contact carefully because, in their world, the wrong glance at the wrong moment can cost a woman her honor or even her life. Their strength is not a brand; it’s a necessity. It’s evidence they have endured.

No, I am certain women are not all the same.

So What do Women Do With Women?

So what do we do with the women we meet—the ones on the platforms and the ones in the villages? Each bears God’s image. Each is meant to know Him and be known by Him. How do we avoid becoming arrogant, indifferent, or crushed by guilt?

I have learned a few practices that help me approach women whose lives are very different from my own. I’ve learned these practices from the ways godly women approached me.

1. Admit that I am not the same as the woman looking back at me, whether she is beside me or still unseen.
2. Set aside the importance of my outward appearance and meet her simply as one heart to another.
3. Ask God to change my mindset from holding it together to humbly being together.
4. Surrender my desire to be remembered and instead lean in to understand her life.
5. Pray that God would help me see both His daughters and myself as He sees us—treasured.

Perhaps women around the world are not the same after all. Perhaps that is precisely God’s design. The beauty of His kingdom has never been found in making us identical but in making us sisters. We honor one another not by pretending our stories are equal, but by seeing one another honestly—with humility, compassion, and hope. Only then are we ready to love as Christ loves us.