Category: Women’s rights

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Owning Your Truth

Several things have happened to me in the past year that have put me in the familiar situation of either owning my truth, or trying to save face.

Women are trained from the moment they enter this world to not only apologize for everything, even things they had nothing to do with, but to explain themselves.

It is one thing to apologize and yet another to explain yourself and justify why you did or said something.

We are taught to be flustered in situations where we did something wrong. It is to make us weak and end up feeling very very bad about ourselves afterward. Making excuses and explanations leaves an awful bad feeling in ones soul.

We are taught to fall all over ourselves with explanations. To gush with them.

It is to make us a good girl.

To just apologize, a simple I am sorry and stop there, takes a lot more courage than you might expect. A woman will be questioned, no, interrogated to explain why she was a bad girl.

Even for us to say no, we go into explanations. This is very demeaning. Why can’t we just say no. No I won’t work on my day off. No I don’t want to go out with you. No I don’t like that. No, I don’t want to do that.

Recently I apologized for something I did do wrong, and for something I said. I did do those things and I was wrong to do so. I owned my truth. I did not elaborate. I was interrogated but I said nothing further, just repeated my apology until they finally understood that was all they were going to get from me. And that was enough.

My heart was pounding. My temperature rose to a hundred degrees. I sweat. But I felt terrific later.

Being true to yourself is extremely hard. No one likes to admit they were wrong. Especially if they did or said something on purpose. And women are suppose to explain why, which is so humiliating.

Sometimes I just fuck up. Sometimes I am in a bad mood. Sometimes I don’t know why I did or said something. Sometimes I do. But why do I need explain it to anyone? We all make mistakes, accidently and on purpose.

Own your truth without a single word more. It is freeing.

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Put It Away

Okay, maybe because I am older I am a bit of a prude. But I am so tired of women celebrities wearing next to nothing, or completely sheer dresses.

It is not classy.

And it is not sexy.

When you are young, you think the more you show the sexier it is.

NOT.

Even a man will tell you this is not sexy.

Do you see men doing this? How does a woman feel when she sees a man flaunting himself this way?

I tell you, I would choose a Cary Grant any day over a naked body builder. Mr. Grant has class.

I have nothing against our bodies, what we have is perfectly natural, normal and not shocking.

We are beings with imaginations, intelligence, creativity. We like to dress up and adorn ourselves in things. It is all good and an expression of our complex characters. But especially so for women.

From an early age, most girls are sexualized. We are taught that it is our looks that are the most important part of our being and we are not taught to develop our personalities and strengths and talents, which are WAY more of a turn on for men, especially the type of man who will love you.

If you walk around with your breasts hanging out it is rather rude. I say, put them away, please. Men do not find this arousing, trust me. Doing this puts you into a certain category in their minds. A category I am sure you are not.

I understand this is hard to comprehend. I was young once too and made these mistakes. If you want a high quality man, you need to be a high quality lady.

Yeah, I’m just an old hag now. Sorry.

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I Think I’m Gonna Be Sad…*

When I was very young, my Mother took me to see Charlotte Whitton, much to the outspoken chagrin of my chauvinistic father. Charlotte was a feisty Canadian politician who left quite the impression on me, I must say. My Mother also made sure I knew about Judy LaMarsh, who my father passionately hated.

My Mother was determined that I grow up knowing I had power. There weren’t a lot of role models then.

I came of age during the emancipation of women, burning bras and fighting for our rights. Gloria Steinem was a prominent figure in those days. I witnessed sexual freedom, equal employment rights, abortion rights. Those were hard earned.

And today, in a flash. Gone.

Make no mistake. If abortion is banned in the United States, all women’s rights will fall like dominoes, worldwide. Already there are plans to make contraceptives and same sex marriage ILLEGAL. It is the intention of many men, and women, to create the Handmaiden’s tale in this century. Many revere what is happening to women in the Taliban right now. That can happen here, and fast.

Gloria Steinem was quoted (mistakenly) as saying: If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

Our society is going backwards in time in leaps and bounds, back to some very dark ages. The past is being viewed through some overly rose coloured glasses. There is not much about the 1950’s that is attractive to me, nor should it be for anyone, man or woman.

The only person who has the right to a woman’s life and body, is the woman. She has to make some pretty damn difficult reproductive decisions that men so easily avoid, consequences they can just walk away from. A woman does not make such decisions lightly. And if you think abortion is a quick fix, you know jack. If you think raising a child with zero help and resources, you know double jack.

Outlawing abortion won’t stop it. It’ll only cause many women to suffer and some to die. Outlawing sex sure as hell won’t stop it! Abstinence? Come on, get real. Banning contraceptives is beyond my comprehension. And why does that only apply to women? Why is this not a joint responsibility, since, hello, it takes two to tango.

As with so many things in this world, women have to make things right, and we have to fight like hell.

As we take giant steps backwards, I think I’m gonna be sad, I think it’s today, yeah…*

* A Beatles song that is in no way related to the topic I discussed, but reflects how I feel.