Dave & I joke that my sailor-mouth (with its infinity for the four-letter f-word that rhymes with fuck) (see what I did there) was birthed on the way up my first 14er in Colorado. In fact, it propelled me.
But today, I want to talk about another dirty f-word.
Feminist.
I am petrified of that word.
I really didn’t know that until recently.
But it’s true.
You see, all my life, I have not only accepted the patriarchy… I have operated my life, gladly, on its axis.
But recently my therapist–with her damned & damning questions–asked me:
What does it mean for you to be a woman?
[insert mind blown emoji her]
Um…
I think about my 3rd grade report card when my teacher gave me glowing remarks punctuated with a slap: “She is bossy.” Would she have said that about a boy?
I think about how even as a teenager, I came to the conclusion that my innate capacity to influence & guide & speak & inspire was mismatched to my gender & so… I gave it up. I gave up on what I could never achieve because I was only meant to bloodily birth the world, not to boldly lead it.
I think about how I was molded into & corrected into & discipled into the form of a submissive & demure & skinny sidekick for my first boyfriend. But it didn’t fit. And then I was rejected. Which in my math-word-problem-world meant that who I was as a woman was rejected.
I think about how after that I read Fascinating Womanhood & studied Proverbs 31 & convinced myself that yes, I could do this, I could be less to be more. This was, after all, what He proclaimed; it was His way.
Even my god was male.
How does that happen? How do we reduce the Thing that is Everything to only half? How do we stuff into a labeled box the Cardboard that the Box is literally made of?
Speaking of boxes: GOD DOESN’T HAVE A PENIS PEOPLE.
I sound like an angry feminist, don’t I?
Ugh.
I have spent my life in resistance to the racist & classist systems of oppression that keep students down, all the while ignoring the system that is holding ME–a woman–down.
And as I turn inward, as I simultaneously devour & regurgitate The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd, I realize that I have lived my entire life wishing I was a man.
Because…what does it mean to be a woman?
Wrong. Less. Worse.
I was in an institution created by men and for men. (Sue Monk Kidd)
I don’t even know where to go. I don’t even know what questions to ask.
I don’t even know if I’m ready.
But on this International Women’s Day, it just felt right to reflect, to confess, to publicly wave a white flag.
To tell the truth about my life.
