I am old enough to remember actively being told that we women could not serve in positions of power in the world (President, Congress, corporate leadership, spiritual leadership) because we were too emotional, too "hysterical." Particularly at the time of our periods, we couldn't be trusted to make rational, thoughtful decisions. Not born to be leaders, we were expected to remain silent, passive and in "follower" mode. Yes, kids, we women of the 1950's got that message loud and clear.
The last 48 hours or so has surely been the final death knell of that belief. There is a lot of "wigging-out" going on, and relatively little of it seems to be by women. Why do I chuckle? Because I cannot help laughing, just a little, at the irony.
Yes, I bought into that lie, and so many others. I loved the 19th century paintings of women in white dresses, languishing on window seats staring out into manicured gardens. I resonated with the notion of filling my time with such rumination, along with art, music and writing -- but the Victorian, dabbling, take-the-paint-box-out-into-the-garden version, not something empowered and visible. I bought into the idea that, if I wasn't fortunate enough to live in that milieu, I was destined to be a slave, working myself to exhaustion for menial wages. Either that, or I could chose just to bypass it all and wander. I bought into the notion that even though I wasn't "strong" enough to engage in the kill-or-be-killed male world of business, politics, and leadership, that was entirely my deficiency.
What was I thinking?
I won't lie. I wouldn't mind the white dress and the garden, and spiritual contemplation, art, music and writing are "what I am." But the genie is out of the bottle. I do them now because they are "me," and they are powerful. They are my form of leadership, my way of creating a new paradigm, not passively escaping an old one. Many people are saying this in different ways, and I'll keep singing the chorus: all of us must claim our unique, loving forms of leadership now. Yes, it will be something we adore doing, even something that makes us smile. But the time is now. We cannot wait. There is nothing "funny" about it.
