The Empowered Woman
The woman has been and still is in many places subjugated. The woman should submit to her husband? This is a sentence that makes my insides writhe and my blood boil.
Shouldn’t partners compliment one another as equals? In some cases the woman may have greater attainment, be more wise and balanced than her partner.
I feel so tormented by the “subservient woman” archetype that seems to be igniting in society lately.
Women are and always have been great poets, scholars, leaders, scientists and also warriors like the famous Joan of Arc! I feel a deep roar of protest at the notion that a woman’s only purpose is to get married “submit to her husband” and have babies. I am in no way against the family and marriage and children. My own family is very important to me. I am not even against some choosing to be stay at home moms (nor am i against being stay at home dad for that matter!). A woman’s choice to work should be her own, and it is indeed possible to work and to have a family. Also we are not cookie-cut-outs, and the choice to remain single and without children should also be protected and respected.
There have been excellent and brave women leaders in all fields in this planet’s history! There was a whole tribe of great women warriors called the Amazons. There are and have been many women scientists like Marie Curie and Jane Goodall. There are and have been great women writers like Emily Dickinson, Hellen Keller, Maya Angelou and the Brontë Sisters. Ella Fitzgerald was a great woman singer/ musician! O’ Keeffe a renown artist paving the way for workman and men artists, excelling and doing what she loved! There are great women CEOs and leaders in politics in many nations (How deeply do I want the USA to elect a woman as president- one who smashes the qualifications by a landslide! I am waiting for her!)
I took for granted all of the progress in women’s rights that the USA and much of the world made. The waves of the “subservient woman” who must “submit to her husband” (what a dangerous demeaning phrase!) and is only meant to be a mother (be a mother by all means if that’s the choice! But careers are a good thing too if that’s the choice! Do not eliminate freedom!)
In addition to my working as an artist and poet, I also work with kids because I love working with kids. Working with the youth is a job that I have seen both women and men excel at. I think of the young girls and boys with whom I work, and I want every freedom for all these kids, every advancement in education, opportunity and for these little ones to grow into empowered and free adults who are treated with respect and not forced by society into positions of subservience!
Even the notion that God is only the Father is incomplete. God is also the Divine Mother in addition to being the Father. In certain eastern traditions like Bhakti Yoga and Kriya Yoga, there is a focus on “The Divine Mother” as God. In Catholicism Mother Mary is “The Mother of God,” and yes she bore Jesus as her child and raised him along with Saint Joseph, but she is a great spiritual being in her own right as well (not to diminish Jesus- not my intention at all).
The Divine Mother is an equal to the Divine Father- both Mother and father are compliments and can lead in infinitely individual ways!