What is woman/womyn? What does it mean to be this thing? How are we supposed to navigate in this world? We are pressured to be beautiful, yet not too much so, lest we be viewed haughty and vain. We are demanded to be bright and charming, yet not too much so, lest we be branded intimidating and brash. We are forced to be oozing sexual chutzpah, yet not too much so, lest we be thought of as whores. Vaginal laser surgery, breast implants, botox on your lunch hour, permanent makeup, face-lifts, butt-lifts, cellulite reduction, anti-aging creams-creams for the eyes, the mouth, the neck, the hands-sun spot removal, electrolysis, and let us not forget the illustrious bikini wax. Can I get a witness?
Thusly, it is exhausting being this thing called womyn...and expensive (ah, capitalism). However, it is only such, if we allow it. I have said NO to this hegemonic structure. I have been slowly saying NO for 10 years. It took me awhile. I grew up in a fishbowl existence where my self-centered fear of people watching me, was not entirely inaccurate. It happened-the Preying-over and over again. The power was taken from me at a young age.
Our young women are not being fully nurtured and held closely to our hearts. What is happening? When are we going to learn? One out of every six women have been victims of an attempted or completed rape at some point in their life. 9 out of 10 rape victims are female. Every 2 seconds someone is sexually assaulted and 44% of sexual assault and rape victims are under the age of 18 (see www.rainn.org). Our girls are hurting. We need to protect our girls. We need to give them permission to live full bright lives, whatever shape that takes. We need to give them permission to be human and embrace their size, shape, and color. This is so paramount to our future. We do not live in a vacuum. We are interconnected, all of us, every single thing on this planet.
This has been made abundantly clear to me in the last few months, shockingly so. It is so stunning, this stark reality, that sometimes all I can do is break down and weep for all the daughters and sons, the parents, the sisters, the brothers, all of us. But I don't weep from a place of fatigue and bitterness. I weep because I realize we are hurting, we are suffering. This planet, this life hurts. There is pain that I have experienced and there is pain I will never even know about. But, when one follows the path all the way down, digging deep into the core of all that is-tracking the path from violence into the stillness of nonviolence-one becomes a conduit of wholly integrated compassion. And it is there where the beauty lies. It is there where the hope resides. It is there where the freedom resides. Freedom from anger, fear, desperation, isolation. Because within the still small place is a haven called sacred interconnectedness. This is the liberation. This is Freedom.
