Listen, Ladies….I say that while Picturing the meme my kid loves of the little boy speaking to his mother but calling her by her name, Linda. Listen, Linda! Last week, I had the opportunity to speak and then lead a conversation at a monthly meeting of the Femme Media Group here in El Paso. It was a terrific night of vulnerable conversations, and I think it will be the budding of a new friendship or two. We briefly discussed various topics, but I will focus on this here.
My perhaps somewhat refined definition of feminist. Do we have work to do regarding equity for our gender? Yes. Are there issues of equal pay, equal opportunity, and hell, even equal say over our damn bodies?? Yes! However, the refined piece comes in here. We will never shatter the glass ceiling once and for all. We will never make what we deserve to make for doing the same jobs. We will never govern ourselves and our bodies if we do not rise together! Women MUST retract the cat claws. Stop climbing over each other. Quit pulling up the ladder left behind us, and instead, turn around and give a hand to the woman coming up behind you!
Too many times, I’ve witnessed, and sadly experienced, what I refer to as the bitchy brigade. Where women talk a good talk, join organizations, and preach about women’s equality. But their actions don’t align with their words. They talk about how minorities and females should have all the same rights, privileges, and freedoms as white men, but then they are the very ones taking other women down, weaponizing against them, and Intentionally Sabotaging and derailing their careers and destroying their reputations. And for what? To secure their own success or passage? To fit in with the boys they’re sitting with? That’s NOT feminism, which is not in my definition.
So, to me, the ultimate definition of feminism is women supporting women. Period end. Is that sometimes in the face of patriarchal men? Yes. Is it sometimes in the face of women hating women? Sadly, yes. Sometimes the women loudest about equal rights and female empowerment, are the very women using their claws to pull other women down to prevent their growth, or kicking them off that proverbial ladder behind them if they’ve made it up.
So don’t! Don’t be part of the bitch brigade saying one thing but acting otherwise. Be the woman that supports other women regardless of your own progress! Be the woman who makes it and then turns around to help those behind her on the journey. Be that woman. We rise together!
