This fantastic post, the words that choke me, sparked some interesting discussion among my online friends. My favorite part:
Maybe the other half of the story is to learn to be equally vulnerable in identifying, owning, and sharing my strengths and my gifts to encourage and empower others to do the same. What a difference we could make in the world if we all embraced our light and let it shine forth unimpeded!
This is a difficult thing, isn’t it? The one question we didn’t reach an answer to is why. Why do so many women feel fearful–or even just strange–about owning our strengths? Why are so many blogs, especially by and for women, devoted to admitting our weaknesses and nurturing the broken places in our lives?
I don’t believe this is entirely the fault of Christian culture. It’s true that in many churches, we’re supposed to love being wives and mothers so much that those are the things we celebrate being good at. It’s also true that in many churches women’s roles are limited, often to things similar to being wives and mothers–food and childcare duties. That’s certainly one place where it can feel unsafe to speak about our strengths.
Another part of the problem is the “disease model” of salvation–that we are all horribly broken from birth and in desperate need to be rescued from hell. For a good number of people (not just women), such a belief has done an incredible amount of damage to their self-worth. If a person thinks she has nothing good inside her to offer, she isn’t going to speak about her strengths.
That’s not the whole picture, though. It’s a systemic issue. I’ve written before on my experience in school of reading very little literature written by women. In all my time playing with my orchestra (more than 10 years total), I think we’ve played exactly one composition written by a woman. When I brought that up with some friends, I got two equally bad reactions:
1. If you wanted to read things by women, why didn’t you just do it on your own?
and
2. Who cares who wrote it as long as it’s good?
Both of those are ways of silencing women. If women have written books that are just as good as those written by men, then why aren’t we reading them in the classroom? The idea that it doesn’t matter is ridiculous. It matters because it sends the message that women may be able to write, but they don’t write the kinds of things everyone wants to read. That may be an unintentional message, but it’s the one being sent whether intended or not.
How can we learn that we are good at these things if we’re never acknowledged as such? How can women know that we are good and capable and that our work is desirable if we look around us and the vast majority of people being celebrated in history, art, literature, science, and music are men?
When people (okay, mostly men; sorry) dismiss that concern as irrelevant or untrue, it just serves to silence us further. When we’re told that it doesn’t matter or that we’re exaggerating or that their experiences were different, it makes me angry. None of those things matter when reality is that so many women continue to feel like we are fractured.
We need to do something about that. I’m going to do something about that. I want to know what we’re good at. Everything we’re good at. If you are a woman, what do you love to do that feels like a success? How did you discover it? Is it your profession? A hobby? Something with your family?
Maybe you’re a guy (hey, plenty of guys read this blog). I’m willing to bet you know some pretty amazing women. What makes them amazing?
Feel free to leave comments here. You can also contact me. I’m going to spend as long as it takes collecting stories about women and what we’re good at. If you want your story here, let me know. I’ll keep it anonymous if you prefer. Let’s get the word out that we are more than our broken places. Let’s do as Kenetha suggests and “[embrace] our light and let it shine forth unimpeded!”
Oooh! You rock. I know exactly what you mean. I realize, in “classical” literature, there isn’t a lot by women, so, dammit, include what little there actually is. I don’t like being a fringe player.
The other half of the coin is, in my thinking, that “traditional” women’s roles are undervalued. People used to complain bitterly to our pastor if I was sick and couldn’t play, but I never got my name in the bulletin! And I remember quite well when no one would volunteer for the nursery, and our pastor (and his wife) had to BEG from the pulpit. But those people never had “Nursery Worker Appreciation Month.”
Oooh, do you play piano or organ? I always wanted to. I love playing violin, and I’m glad I do, but I’m learning a little bit of basic piano alongside my daughter. And if that’s what you were playing in church, why didn’t they ever put you in the bulletin???? I’ve never been to a church that didn’t acknowledge their musicians!
i remember sitting in a class in college and the professor informed us that he read everything as if a white man wrote it and we should too. my comment of ‘but i’m a woman, and a woman of color. my heritage has beauty and good writing too’ was summarily dismissed.
I love that! Yes, your heritage has beauty and goodness. Maybe you can give a recommendation for something you especially liked, if you wouldn’t mind. My readers might enjoy reading something new to them.
so i went and looked and looked, because most of what i’ve read is in spanish. but maybe there are translations.
i found this good explanation of who some of the ‘who’ in mexican literature are.
http://www.thelatinoauthor.com/countries/mexico/literature/
there are too many instances lately of latino culture being cut out of our schools because it causes division. part of me wonders if this is fear-based. i say this carefully, but we are the up and coming majority in this country. ignoring the culture, and acting as though it doesn’t matter does not bode well for future relations between the groups.
my children straddle the world, but identify first as mexican-american. finding beauty in both cultures is, i believe, a way forward to hope and growth.
thank you for acknowledging my culture as worthy.
and my absolute favorite author wrote Cajas de Carton. it’s a series of short stories about the life of migrant workers. i come from immigrants, my grandparents fled devastation to come to this country, and worked hard that we could have a life. i’m proud to be mexican-american.
Thank you! I’m bookmarking the link. I don’t understand the removal of Latino culture. Where I live (my specific neighborhood, and my son’s school) there is an incredibly diverse population. People from all different races, nationalities, ethnicities. To walk into my son’s school is to see a palette of diversity, and it’s beautiful. He has read lots of multicultural literature because the teachers are committed to bringing things to the classroom that will honor the diversity of the student population. I, on the other hand, didn’t read much beyond what’s written by white men until adulthood. I’m sad to say that I’ve never read any Mexican authors. It’s time to change that.
Hey, you’ve put up with me for over 16 years, Amy. That alone earns you a medal!
LOL! Well, I think that one goes both ways. 🙂
Thanks for taking up this cause, Amy! We are too often silenced, and I think that the more we can speak up about our strengths and hear them mirrored back to us, the more likely we will be to USE those strengths in the world. So this matters not just for us, but for everyone around us too.
This is really, really uncomfortable, but I’m going to do it anyway. Some of my strengths include:
*Writing, especially contemplative pieces
*Listening deeply to others and offering encouragement
*Organizing and managing details
These are things that have shown up over and over again in my life and ones that I have fairly consistently gotten positive feedback about from others.
Thanks again for doing this!!!
I’m glad you stepped out into that place and named your strengths! Those are wonderful things. 🙂
I think women are trained in a false modesty and made to believe that expressing their strengths is arrogant. Yet humility is a right-view of yourself: no more, no less, your strengths and your weaknesses without deflating or inflating either. I love being a wife and mother, but I also love being a writer, a marketing professional, and a sometime graphic designer. I love what you say about women being made to feel fractured. We, like men also, are whole people made up of different interest, skills, traits. Thanks for posting!
Yes, I think you’re right. We’re trained to think we shouldn’t name our strengths. Yet most men would not have any problem with that. And it’s true–we’re made to feel like we’re not whole, and even that we are nothing without husbands and children. Like you said, we are made up of so many parts.
I think a lot of the ‘broken’ woman mentality is a societal nature as well. I know growing up in a christian home didn’t make me think I had to be lesser or weaker, perhaps submit more, but definitely not weaker. The society of the issue is that we are taught from a young age, either by watching other women, or those of us that thrive in the study of psychology, is that you have to stroke a man’s ego. Men, in general, have to feel needed, and if you are like me, a capable, strong-willed, independent woman, guys run from that. My ex told me after our break-up a few years ago that it was hard for him to be with me because I didn’t ‘need’ him for anything.
It takes a different type of person to break this cycle. Being a single mother of two daughters taught me I do not like women who play the ‘victim’, who act as if they are not just as capable as a man. Any excuses that my daughters throw up about not having time or that they ‘can’t’ do something gets immediately veto’d in my house because Momma has written 3 novels while working full time and being a full time parent.
My children and my writing are my biggest strengths. I accomplished what most in my life told me I never would, which is raising independent daughters who can think for themselves. I’m also about to publish my third novel, something that by all accounts of the people in my life, should have never happened. It is sad to see the next generation of daughters that appear helpless because they believe they have to be.
Amen for this post, thoroughly enjoyed this topic and you’re write, it did strike a nerve!
Goodness, yes, and men who DO want a strong woman (like my own husband!) are made to feel that they are weak or not real men in some way. My own son is friends with a lot of girls, which I encourage, because his friends are awesome–each girl is unique and strong and interesting. Someday, maybe he will want to get married to a woman, and if he feels confident in his sense of self, then he will never run from a woman who is confident in herself.
And go you, writing your novels! That’s awesome and exciting. Maybe I’m weird, but whenever other women tell me about their accomplishments, I get a little thrill for them. And way to go, being such a great example for your daughters and teaching them to think for themselves.
some great literature written by a woman, with a strong female lead character—the “hunger games” trilogy by suzanne collins—i’m also very inspired that in my school district “the hunger games” is required reading in seventh grade—something that never would have happened when i was a girl of twelve—there is a lot of such literature at the middle school level, and this current generation of girls just might be the ones to finally tip the scale
Yay! I saw recently that Toni Morrison is now on many recommended reading lists (and is yet again having her books banned as a result). I read a lot of stuff on my own, but I’m thrilled at seeing schools encouraging books by and about women far more than in my own school years.