If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred million times:: We live in a culture that hates women.
Our culture hates white women. It hates brown women. It hates black women. It hates trans women.
It hates women. Period.
And.
Our culture is smart, it’s learned through the years how to truly keep us leashed and under its thumb.
It pits us against each other.
It dangles carrots for us so that we think we will rise up to the top of the heap, but only if we betray all other women.
It tells us over and over again that the ideal female (who is still hated by the way) is white, young, and thin.
Our culture turns us against our grandmothers, disregarding their wisdom, mocking their age and “dementia,” and frailty.
Our culture turns us against our daughters, having us teach them to not be seen or heard, to be polite, to be nice, to not speak, to keep their emotions and opinions to themselves.
Our culture turns us against our mothers, these women on their way to becoming the grandmothers, these women who have done what they needed to do to survive and by extension for their daughters to survive.
Our culture turns us against our sisters, not trusting them, not believing them, gaslighting them, telling them their emotions and experiences aren’t valid, that they are to blame for all that has happened to them, including the things they actually didn’t have any control over.
Our culture lies to us, telling us how other women are the problem, how we ourselves are the problem. It tells us we are worthless, weak, and powerless.
And perhaps that is the greatest lie. Because love, we are powerful beyond measure.
We make up half of the world’s population. We are the ones who birth babies. We are the ones, despite how much our culture tries to hold us down, who rise up, again and again, demanding to be seen, to be heard, to be respected, to be treated as equals.
We are powerful forces of nature, us women. Together we could move mountains. Together we could burn all this shit down. Together we could create a world where all are truly equal.
The thing is, we need to come together first.
We need to break the leash of our patriarchal training and culture.
We need to stop believing the lies that other women are the problem, that we ourselves are the problem. We need to stop gaslighting each other, stop judging each other, stop shoving each other down so we ourselves can rise up.
We need to claim our power. The power that lives within each of us and the power of our collective womanhood. The power that is being deeply connected to our Whole Self: body, mind, spirit, soul, shadow, light, feminine, masculine. The power of being deeply connected to each other.
Until all of us are free and equal, none of us are free or equal.
It is time to rise up. It is time to burn this all down. It is time to embrace our world-wide sisterhood. It is time to stop betraying our own.
They think they took away our power. We think they took away our power.
They didn’t.
It is here living inside of us, waiting for us to allow it to rise up.
It is time to embrace the Unleashed Woman who lives within each of us, whether we think we are ready for her or not.
(Below is a 20-minute video of me talking even more about this idea of reclaiming our strength. I hope you enjoy it.)
(Did you enjoy this? Then I invite you to subscribe to my weekly love letter right over here.)
(Interested in deeply connecting to your own power, your own Unleashed Woman who lives within you with a community of other women? Then I invite you to join us for my next six-month circle, Exploring our Light::(Re)Connecting to our Strength, Power, and Daring, that begins November 1. You can learn more and register right over here. )
This is the second in a four-part series of essays and videos. Want to see the rest? You can find them here:
Reclaiming our power (this post)
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