So, I guess I blog about women's issues now. Go figure. I had hoped to get a blog up for international women's day, but life was a bit hectic and I had a million things going on so the day after will have to do.
On Facebook a friend shared a photo with a poem by Rupi Kaur from her book Milk and Honey.
i want to apologize to all the women i have called beautifulbefore i’ve called them intelligent or bravei am sorry i made it sound as thoughsomething as simple as what you’re born withis all you have to be proud ofwhen you have broken mountains with your wit from now on i will say things likeyou are resilient, or you are extraordinarynot because i don’t think you’re beautifulbut because i need you to knowyou are more than that
My response was rather silly, however it was one that I often use when referencing things that move me. "Well, I hadn't planned on crying today."
The thing is, I was moved by the sheer grace of this poem. Not negating the beauty of women, but encouraging their other qualities. Moved so much that sitting at my desk low key checking on facebook, I felt my throat tighten and my eyes water. I was the girl who was resilient, who could be more than just the features she was born with. All women could be.
As a western woman my issues look different than my fellow feminists across the globe. Here we fight for equal pay, and economic status among other things. In western Europe women fight for the right to their bodies and their health. In many parts of Asia women fight for the right to exists with out being the property or the pleasure of a man.
No mater what the struggles women face, no matter how trivial they are we should support one another.
On this (day after) International Women's Day we should focus on things that bind us together in the female experience. Support one another, know that we are more than just pretty faces, we are more than just cute dresses, we are more than just our jobs. We are fully formed personalities forged by our own desires. We are the masters of our destiny, or own bodies, our own rights.
I support you my sisters, and I am thankful that I can see what you have become, and what you will become.
We raise girls to see each other as competitors, not for jobs, or for accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men.
This is something that as one of three daughters I have experienced first hand. My older half-sister and I had the same taste in men from the age of 12, when she moved in with us, to the age of 17 when thankfully I discovered heavy metal music and a completely different genre of men.
As I got older this problem resolved it's self as I began to realize I didn't want to be in competition with women for the affections of men. First and foremost I was always the girl with the "Plan". Detailed charts of how I was going to live my life, the time tables I'd follow to get there. (How that turned out is a different blog for another time.) Men were simply going to have to fit around this detailed schedule.
When I did date, it was very casual, very low key. I was the girl people liked,I rarely liked any one enough to be invested. There were one or two crushes, but over all no one I particularly cared for.
Just recently I began to see a guy, and not to air our dirty laundry, but we've had issues with his female friends having hard core jealousy issues. The proverbial "I saw him first" mentality has raised its head. Normally this would have been my cue to end this episode and travel to the next town where I would fight bad guys and save damsels in distress. (Insert Xena: Warrior Princess opening theme music here). However I like this guy, so I've decided this may be a two part episode and we'll see how it goes.
These friends are women I would have gotten along with splendidly I think. We all claim to be feminists, we all claim to want social equality of the sexes, we all claim that women should be supportive of one another. Yet when the first 'threat' to our hold on someone or something shows it's head we do what we've been taught to do. We compete for the affections of men to validate our worth as feminists.
Boy troubles aside this brings me to my point: Women MUST learn to support each other. Daddy issues, personal jealousy, no matter who was right, we must support one another.
"Oh well I'm a Godly woman, I build people up." You may be saying. To that I say, and pardon my language; Bull shit. Ask any woman in the church about how she feels about Joyce Myers, women in leadership rolls, and women supporting their families and I guarantee you the answers will be split, and most often time at least one of those subjects will end in something negative about another member of the same gender.
Biblically our roll models are so far from the modern interpretation of women in the church.
Deborah: A prophet of God, a judge of Israel. Her husband illicit two verses in the entire bible, Deborah Commands two chapters in Numbers and is cited as one of the prophets of our faith, who gained what was promised even before the death of Christ.
Esther: A woman living in a foreign land taken to be the wife of a man she did not want to be used for a greatness she wasn't ready for. Her narrative changes through out her book from a passive and obedient girl to a woman and Queen who maneuvers a complex and corrupt court system to save her people.
Priscilla: One of the first women to preach in the New Testament. She's often cited with writing a good portion of the book of Hebrews if not all of it. She's Along with her husband she became a celebrated missionaries and she even came up against early misogyny in the church when in Timothy there was a blanket call on women teaching men.
I could go on and on and on, but as I'm writing this on my lunch break at work I just don't have the time.
These women show us comradely, or even more prevalent their gender is not a threat to them. These women encountered men, and they encountered hardships, and they prevailed not because of their gender but because they were strong and courageous. Continuously we see women built up in the scriptures and made to stand on their own. We should learn from these women.
Like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has said: We teach girls to see each other as competition. We must learn the time and the place for it. Healthy rivalries for jobs, advancements, and sportsmanship are good. Well thought out debates on politics, human interests, and even pop stars will further us as a gender far more than any law requiring we be paid the same amount. (Though on a personal note wage regulations would be a helpful to me personally and economically.)
Instead we attack each other on the way we keep our hair, the men we're seeing, who hurt who's feelings, and the list goes on and on.
In closing; I don't have all the solutions, but I do know that I want to do my part to empower my fellow females, and to be uplifting when I can.
