“It’s A Girl”

Over the last few weeks, a string of events, of hearing, watching, seeing, have churned something very deep within me. The core of my being has been impacted, and these experiences unearthing something in me, are teaching me and showing me that what is arising is not just springing up now, but has been apart of me forever. Probably since the doctor announced, “It’s a girl”.

It is like something you have felt forever, but have never seen, or something that you think other people have more reason to feel so strongly about this issue because they have (fill in the blank). It is is like a time capsule. You see a marker perhaps stating its place, you believe and know it is buried there, but you never see it. Or, it is like something you push away, avoiding it because you know that if you actually address it, it will change everything, so resistance saves you from feeling the realities. Or, it is like something you’ve carried forever, and you carry it without even realizing because it’s literally the water you swim in.

For me, the last few weeks have felt like all of these things. Tears come without effort or warning, streaming down my face in seeing Malala speak, or in listening to Hillary Clinton’s acceptance of the Democratic nomination for president, or reading President Obama’s essay on why he is a feminist. The tears spring up from a deep well that I can viscerally feel in my gut. Their words washing over me and through me, seeping water into dried up riverbeds. Turning up buried material under the cracked dirt that has not seen water for ages, channeling forever to some endless stream, leading to a very long river, leading to a vast ocean. It’s like a flashflood. One moment you are wading in water mid calf and the next moment, in over your head. I know I am in this water and when I hear the words of these strong leaders, I am aware that I am in deep water, that I have my experience as a woman, that I hold hope for my daughters in a way that aches. These words from people of power send every part of me crashing towards something hopeful. And by hopeful I don’t mean some fluffly hope, but rather a gritty hope, each one of them naming the real struggle, the real legacy of women before us, and a taste of the future. From mothers who fear having daughters because of the reality for women in an oppressive culture, or to women who accept a presidential nomination acknowledging her lineage and her legacy in one breath. Malala said, “When I was born, and in finding out that I was a girl, my mother said there was a sadness in her heart, knowing what it would mean to raise a girl in Pakistan. My father, had been speaking out for women’s rights for years, and he was very happy. Over the years, my mother has learned how to use her own voice as well and she is less afraid for me”. (paraphrase from hearing Malala Yousafzai on July 24 at University of Washington). When she named this, I was able to authentically access the part of me that felt those same things in having my first child be a girl. Consciously I knew my task as mother to a daughter would be great for all the unconscious realities of what I carry in my very DNA and in the stories of women that have gone before me like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Annie Oakley, and Amelia Erhart. What did they feel as they persevered through their dreams? What was it like for Annie Oakley to be a shooter in a time when that was only something men did? These questions are a direct link to the questions I have about what my girls will face in this culture, in this world. And then, I see Hillary on a world stage accepting her nomination. What did that moment mean to her? What are the intricacies of her battle to get to this place? The public face of strength, yet does she weep in the green room when she hears of people being critical of her body, the way she looks, or what she wears? Does that get to her and what does she do with that? If you look close enough and listen carefully enough, you can see the war paint on her face as she says, “We’ve reached a milestone in our nation’s march for a more perfect union. The first time a major party has nominated a woman for president. Standing here as my mother’s daughter and my daughters mother, I am so happy this day has come. I am happy for grandmothers, for little girls, and everyone in between. I am happy for boys and men because when any barrier falls in america, it clears the way for everyone”. I watched this with my now eight year old daughter by my side. She saw my tears. In her few years of life, she has her quiver of observations and experiences of what it means to be a girl. She knows because she comes home from second grade, and with injustice in her voice wonders why boys get treated differently than girls, or she boldly wonders why God is always referred to as a He. She already knows and she has known since the midwife said, “It’s a girl”. And then just a week after Hillary, an essay written by President Obama just propelled the water down the stream further and perhaps a little faster. “The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, ‘It’s a girl’. We know that these stereotypes affect how girls see themselves starting at a very young age, making them feel that if they don’t look or act a certain way, they are somehow less worthy…We need to keep changing the attitude that raises our girls to be demure and our boys to be assertive, that criticizes our daughters for speaking out and our sons for shedding a tear. We need to keep changing the attitude that punishes women for their sexuality and rewards men for theirs. We need to keep changing the attitude that permits the routine harassment of women, whether they’re walking down the street or daring to go online. We need to keep changing the attitude that teaches men to feel threatened by the presence and success of women”.