Pledge for the Year of the Lunar Moon
Studies show that women suffer more verbal abuse from other women than from men. I don’t need a study to tell me that. I went to high school.
Starting eighth grade I was short, flat chested, skinny and had a badly cut shag ala Mrs. Brady. I rode the bus to school. We were new in town. I knew no one besides my family and began my 8th grade year by having someone shove me aside on the bus and telling me to “get out of the way, boy.” I remember thinking, “Even if they can’t see my chest, can’t they see my big hoop earrings?” Boys didn’t wear earrings back then, at least not big hoops down to their shoulders, which was the reason I had worn mine to begin with.
From what my teenage daughters tell me, verbal abuse among their peers has only gotten worse. Names that make me cringe are not whispered in private and giggled about behind dainty hands but shouted across lunchroom tables and down the hall for anyone within distance to hear. Other girls do not defend, but either join in the humiliation of another, glad it wasn’t they who were singled out this time, or walk away embarrassed for the other but afraid to have the situation turned on them.
At this point I have to admit that I was one of those girls. Even though I wasn’t the “picker,” I was the one who walked away. I have wished so many times that I would have recognized the Athena in me back then, the warrior who fights for her beliefs. But I was happy enough to be left unnoticed.
If we want to stop the abuse we suffer from men, we must first stop it among ourselves. Oftentimes it is not something another woman has done to us personally that makes us rear our ugly heads. It can just be the wear she wears a dress, the way her glossy hair tosses back when she laughs, the way she gathers attention . . . Yes, I’m talking jealousy here.
Real women forgive. Real women support one another. Real women stand up for themselves and others who are not able to. Real women cower from anyone who is stronger than they. Real women wear a size 2, work out and have weekly appointments with their hairdressers, stylists, masseuses and manicurists. Real women get $10 hair cuts and buy their clothes at K-Mart so their kids can buy their jeans from American Eagle.
Real women show off the figures they work so hard for. Real women work two jobs just to keep food on the table because their husbands got laid off.
Real women live off alimony and lunch at the country club. Real women rush home from working a 12-hour shift before picking the kids up from the sitter’s and making grilled cheese for dinner.
Real women wear bikinis to the beach with high heels because it makes them feel powerful and sexy. Real women wear burkas because it makes them feel part of something ancient and sacred.
When we stop judging each other in the moment by appearance and get to know the person underneath the burka, underneath the makeup and red bikini, then, and only then, shall we be truly free.
Yesterday was Chinese New Year, the year of the tiger, the year of the lunar moon, all bringing in feminine energies. It’s a good time to start being truly free, don’t you think?
Take the pledge: I will not judge another woman because of her outward appearance because I don’t know how her appearance makes her feel. I will not judge another women because of her actions because I know not where she’s been or where she’s going. I will not judge another women because my own insecurities keep me from realizing that she may be a terrific person who’s had the good fortune to have a wonderful, prosperous life, for that can be my life, too. When we cease looking at others’ lives too closely and focus more on our own, we can make our world a whole lot better, one person at a time.
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Tags: abuse, acceptance, Athena, feminine energies, forgiveness, Goddess, Goddesses, humiliation, jealousy, judgment, lunar year, mean girls, real women, year of the tiger
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