9. The power of self defense
Have you ever felt endangered because you are a woman? Physically, psychologically, socially? There are lots of ways for women to be endangered.
I have a friend whose grandmother would not feed her because she was a girl. This was in the twentieth century, in the United States.
I had another friend, a brilliant photographer, whose family would not send her to college because she was a girl. Her work is now in the permanent collections many museums.
And another whose father beat her with a belt until his arms grew tired.
I shared parts of my own story in “The power of sovereignty.”
Women are raped by their dates or beaten by their husbands; some religious ideology supports the husband’s right to do so. Women are trafficked into sex work or other forms of slave labor. In some cultures, women who have stepped outside the social boundaries are murdered by family members in so-called “honor killings,” as the woman’s behavior is said to have sullied the family’s reputation.
Neglect, abuse, withholding of opportunity, humiliation, trafficking, as well as the social structures and legislative policies that provide advantages to men and deny them to women — these are methods designed to enforce a subservient position for women, to break us of our intention to be powerful…
