This month is women’s history month and because of this I would like to share some of my ideas about what it has been like for me to be a modern day woman in this USA. Recently Sen. Elizabeth Warren had an interesting perspective about sexism and politics that she shared with reporters when she choose to stop her bid as a Democratic candidate for the presidency. In a few chosen words she summed up for me what I and other women have experienced not just in this country, but around the world and it has been publicly referred to as “the trap”. Below I am going to quote her and then further explain how “the trap” has affected my life as well as other women.
“Gender in this race, you know, that is the trap question for every woman. If you say, ‘yeah, there was sexism in this race,’ everyone says ‘whiner,'” she said. “And if you say, ‘no, there was no sexism,’ about a bazillion women think, ‘what planet do you live on?””
Unfortunately this “trap” does not just start or stop with our equal treatment in politics, it can be seen in every facet of a woman’s life and I mean absolutely every single facet. The story I’m going to share with you today is about my experience with “the trap” and just so your aware it is not a political story it is a personal one and it will only cover one of the many facets of my life. What I’m sharing today is about my personal journey through motherhood and how this journey while having amazing and beautiful points has also deeply damaged and scarred me. First let’s start with the fact that all around the world during every minute of the day there are countless women risking their lives and dying while giving birth to their children. Yet, regardless of this fact humanity has and is increasingly taking our miracle for granted by seeing it as just some average ordinary every day bland act.
Further more I would like to state as another fact that growing up as a woman in this world is a perilous and arduous process to say the least that some of us do not survive. One of the main reasons for this is because of the reality that our gender has been utterly defined by our ability to produce children. Today there are still many places in the world where a woman’s entire value and the quantity of her treatment are still being determined by her ability to not only bear children, but to bare male offspring. Historically speaking since the beginning of time the idea of our motherhood along with many other created identities for our gender have been used to cage us in, and this task can only be accomplished by heavy social programming tactics. Traditionally our societies have only offered a very limited amount of identities in which to define the roles of women and some of the most enduring examples that we have been allowed to be are either being whores, untouched virgins, wives and or mothers.
This behavior of limiting women’s roles in society, which has been theoretically believed to be first perpetuated by men is now in modern day society also being perpetuated by women. The irony of women becoming perpetuators of the “trap” has not escaped my notice or that of other women and especially now when we have more rights than ever before. Even though our actions are ironic I also see them as fortuitous, because we are in desperate need of an awakening that will open our eyes to our actions and will assist us in holding ourselves accountable for our abusive behaviors towards each other. It is my belief that the act of accepting our accountability and the inevitable healing that it will bring is a necessary element that we must obtain before we will be able to completely succeed in our fight for equality.
These abusive behaviors that we have helped to perpetuate have only served to once again cripple the evolution and development of our gender by caging us in. Like so many women around the world I also once believed the programming of my family, my culture and my religious beliefs and thought that my only worth as a woman was solely defined by becoming a wife and or mother. Unfortunately I have observed through my experiences that while American women have managed to take back some of their equality they have also managed to create opposing forces of division among women while doing so, which is further reinforcing the action of limiting the roles for women. This action has an overall repercussions that will unfortunately lead us into a perpetually trap of our own design, and from which we will be unable escape, that is if we don’t put a stop to it here and now.
It is these opposing forces among women in regards to our motherhood that I have experienced and that I now wish to discuss in more detail to explain how they have drastically affected my life. For me it goes back to the title of my writing, “Your Damed if You Do and Your Damed if You Don’t!” Major divisions between women that can clearly be seen in this country are between those women who choose to be stay at home mothers, and those who choose not to be mother and to be career oriented instead, and also those women that choose both and believe that every women should be capable or want to be capable of “doing it all”. Before I had my two children I spent 12 years not being able to have children due to infertility issues and during that time in my early 20s I was blatantly socially ostracized by women with children, by them treating me as though I were a defective and lesser life form.
Now that I am a mother I have had this experience once again of being treated as less than and now by the women that have chosen to not have children as well as those who think that I should want to and be capable of doing it all. It is now my understanding that some of these women exclude me from their social circles because they view me as someone of lesser intelligence that is being controlled by my society or maybe even a man in my life. My response to their attitudes and opinions is a sense of outrage for the fact that it makes me feel like any decision I make as a woman is always viewed as wrong unless it fits into one of these defined perspectives. Furthermore I have also encountered constant and unending criticism towards just about all of my actions by women in my society whether they are a mother or not through their attempts to nitpick apart everything I say and do, which gives me the impression that they expect me to be perfect.
Regardless of the theory that the historic origins of these abusive behaviors first began with men towards women, it is still our responsibility as women to see and stop these negative behaviors within ourselves and to rise above them to support each other instead of tearing each other down. The underlying behavioral issue that this all really all boils down to is that our gender is being overly judged and is being overly judgmental. To begin to change this and other behaviors we need to first see and then accept the fact that at this point women are abusing other women in this regard more than men are abusing women. What we also need to accept is that until we grow and evolve past these damaging behaviors we will never be able to globally obtain and hold on to our equal rights. It is my belief that our goal of global equality is not being obtained in its totality right now because some of us are to busy digging out our equality foundations while others of us are in the middle of building them.
Cooperation without an overly judgmental attitude is one of the major keys to our future success, but first we must all conquer the dark core of our egos that encourages these abusive behaviors towards other women or people in general. If we are unable to come together then we will inevitably fail and keep failing, and it is not just ourselves that we will fail but our friends, sisters, aunts, daughters, granddaughters, mothers and grandmothers. To accomplish the goal of global equality we must come together with a unified voice around the world and at one time to take back our rights. To help accomplish the goal of overall human equality and not just women’s equality I have always been willing to evolve myself by doing away with any thought process that supports behaviors that are not beneficial towards myself or those I love or humanity as a whole.
So, I would like readers to ask themselves this question whether they are a woman or man or identify as other… What am I doing to further the concepts of a equality in this world whether it is between genders or races or religions or any other self identifying party? After all when anyone refers to the fight for equality among human beings we are essentially referring to our core human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness at least as it is simplistically defined in this country. I would like to end my thoughts today with this idea that the real fight for equality first begins inside our hearts, minds and souls and it is there and only there were the over all battle can truly be won for all of us and finally for once and for all.
Until next time try to avoid the traps that you create within yourself and the ones our societies perpetuate.
Thanks for reading and…
Namaste!
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