Women – we are craftily complex yet beautifully simple.
Mothers – we are the founders of humanity and the keys to “home”.
Across the world, women have been drastically minimized, mistreated and manipulated. Words and insults are mindlessly tossed in the direction of women.
The Handmaid’s Tale and the “Gileadean state’s desire to own and control women’s fertility” is evocative and hard to watch without flinching through the fictional atrocities that occur towards fertile women. I’m so thankful I never watched this series during my own infertility struggles. It would have sent me to the psych ward. But, beyond the political messaging the series conveys, to me the show begs a meditation, what is the value of a woman? And why does the world insist it lies where our legs meet, at the entrance of life and lust?
FIRST – a love letter to women, from a woman. I’ve been asked by some why I choose to call God, “HER”? Here are my reasons. If we are created in God’s image, I’d like to start with some biology as foundational as X and Y chromosomes. The truth is, all humans begin with XX chromosomes – we all begin as “woman”. In the beginning, there is no Y, until it is introduced later by a male. Maybe we are the ones who traded our rib for a mate? But it is true, life first begins, as female. In fact, everything in nature is essentially female and blooms from her seeds. Now, as a woman, I enjoy being soft, sensitive and caring while being smart, composed and formidable. But I cry. I argue. And I’m here for the the ebb and flow of my hormones because I honor the changes my body endures on a daily basis. I revel in my plushness and feed it well. I embrace my sensuality. I delightfully use all of my feminine energy for good and serve the world with my own set of feminine powers. We women are the sand that slips through your fingers. Too wild to truly tame. Too loyal to lose. Too mysterious to master. I adore the feminine, like Maya Angelou, Eartha Kitt, Billie Holiday, Josephine Baker, Toni Morrison. To me, they capture our intellect and intrigue in a way that allowed their work to leave behind a lingering fragrance…that I personally want to find, name and own for myself.
If I bend my mind into a man’s, I can understand his pursuits in trying to capture the “value” of a woman and control its cost to the world – control it, market it, package it, sell it. But our value is otherworldly. Our value is overwhelming power over humanity and in the past it’s evoked either fear or worship – like Lilith or Aphrodite. The “Venus” goddess sculptures can be found the world over during the periods of Upper Paleolithic art proving the feminine form was revered throughout history often pointing to a matriarchal society during early human existence.
Who would benefit from a world without women? To doubt our power would be to doubt the foundation you stand on. Lift, lift, lift up a woman. Raise up your daughters cloaked in their feminine power. We need only but “be”. We need only to exist. Our superpower is just BEING WOMAN. We are both sharp and soothing, fierce and calming, calculating yet endearing and empathetic. We birth the world, cradle it and then preserve its humanity. Behind every powerful human being is at least one woman who cared. Leave us to our own devices, and our influence over the heart will overshadow the ego’s influence over the mind.