An Awakening Deep Within My Soul.
I used to believe that I was opinionless and I was OK with that. Hell, to be totally honest I thought it was a pretty good attribute to have— it helped keep the peace, or so I thought. I found I was able to avoid debates and plentiful of arguments when I didn’t have an opinion.
But then, then I had my daughter. And something deep within my soul awoke with such a spirited force. I realized I did have opinions, big opinions, in fact. Especially when it came to the systemic workings of our familial & societal structures, as well as the overall treatment of women—past, present & future. I realized that all of those years I was content with not having opinions was actually the result of being conditioned, and at times forced, to stay silent.
I learned early on when I asked honest questions, challenged belief systems, or analyzed my family’s structures I was belittled and shamed. I was taught to stay silent in the face of abuse because no one was willing to believe the truth anyway; I remembered to stay silent when the people I looked up to gossiped because if I questioned their intention they felt shamed and lashed out. I was raised to never disagree with what an adult taught me, even if it was fundamentally wrong, because it was power and control over me they were searching for anyway, a battle I didn’t know how to win. I learned that if I questioned the religion I was forced to follow then others became unsettled with their own fears and shame rising to the surface and projected them onto me. I learned that silence meant pretending it never happened when I was molested for multiple years during my youth by a child older and larger than me. I learned that staying quiet meant safety when others refused to accept their own accountability for their hurtful behaviors. I was shown that my silence was dependent on others’ enjoyment when the older men at the Golf Club I worked at during high school, would grope me and place their hands on my lower back, my thighs, and my rear while professing their wishes of a return to youth for a chance to “be with” me. I was conditioned to accept when people whom I was told “loved me” would yell, scream, and berate me for simply disagreeing. I was taught that silence was essential in ensuring the high school art teacher’s feelings were not tousled after he forcefully kissed me, and that his feelings were far superior to my own sense of safety; I was 14 years old, he was also my Sunday school teacher. At seventeen I was instructed that silence was the best way to handle the aftermath of the time a twenty-six year-old man snuck into my sister’s guest room in the middle of the night while I was sleeping, crawling into my bed, pinning me down, and trying to force himself on me. He was a friend of my sister’s, and I was told that since I managed to break free, it was best to leave it as it was: silent. I was reminded that my sense of safety has no weight or any real bearing in this world when a man’s behaviors are involved, especially so when a forty-some year-old Air Force Colonel in a position of leadership and power took advantage of my twenty-some year-old self and groped me at every work-related function and public encounter, no matter how much I squirmed and tried to avoid him. I was taught throughout my life, by the examples and urgings of others that speaking up, or against, those who put me in threatening or even mildly uncomfortable situations was worth far more than how those situations left me feeling. I was taught that keeping silent equated to politeness, and politeness trumped my own personal comfort.
Except I never felt comfortable.
And then I had a daughter. And holy shit did I wake up, it was like a jolt straight into consciousness. As it turned out I DID have opinions all along, and how empowering was it to finally understand! Each and every time I felt uncomfortable those were the voices of my opinions being muffled, suppressed, and quieted. Being conditioned to keep silent had slowly been suffocating me. I decided then and there that my daughter’s comfort & sense of safety was far superior to anyone else’s, and I would be her biggest advocate, no matter mine or anyone else’s level of discomfort. I vowed to forge a path for her to live confidently despite the current state of our society or past familial beliefs. I’ve held true to that promise, and as a result my daughter knows she is worthy of respect, unconditional love, and safety no matter where she may be. I’ve mindfully guided her throughout the years towards building a foundation within herself that is confident, independent-thinking, compassionate, analytical, courageous, empowered and not afraid to speak up or against the injustices of our world. When we advocate for our kids, we communicate to them that we see them, accept them and that they are worthy of love; and when, we as parents are champions for our kids, they in turn learn how to stand up for themselves. Our children need us to advocate for them, but especially our girls.
When boys and girls are first born, they are equals. Neither has an advantage over the other. Each has the same knowledge of our world. Each are born as helpless babies who need to be taken care of to survive, no sense of power or order to their assigned genders. Then something happens, slowly but surely, families and society build glass houses around the girls, to contain them. The boys, though they are groomed to their own set of unhealthy belief systems based on their gender, have no such containment for they are offered an abundance of freedom at their fingertips. Girls can watch and observe the very freedoms boys have, but they must do so from within their glass houses. There, within those glass houses girls are raised to be polite, to keep quiet and accept whatever mistreatment comes their way. Girls are taught to be grateful for the indecent ways they are treated in day-to-day life, normalizing it in such a way that our society has become jaded to the dysfunction of it all. We are taught if a boy hurts us, he likes us. We are taught if our feelings get hurt, we are too sensitive. We are taught if we make too much noise or dress a certain way, we will attract the wrong kind of attention. We are taught if we fight back we are the villain, if we get hurt in the process we deserved it. We are taught to carry the accountability for the behaviors of men. We are taught to be supporters of others’ dreams but if we wish to succeed we must do it on our own. We are taught that its our job, solely, to raise emotionally healthy children in a world that shuns emotions and feelings. We are taught to be envious of the other girls who daringly chip away at or eventually break down the walls of their own glass houses. Except, even then those who dare to break down their walls are surrounded by shards of glass which stands between them and their search for freedom, cutting their feet along the way.
We, as women and girls are conditioned to stay silent. The only acceptable opinions are the ones that align with either our family’s beliefs, specific religions, or our society’s values. The girls who are quiet, and compliant rule-followers are praised with approval; I was. Meanwhile, the girls who speak up or stray from their stereotypical roles are given titles that indirectly cut them down: bossy, talkative, independent, tomboy, slut, liar, witch, dramatic, etc.; each of these titles said with disdain. Many girls learn to steer away from these titles, for acceptance and survival. Many girls learn that despite their true interests and thoughts, in order to be accepted by their family, peers, and society in general, they must stay silent. We learn to further abandon ourselves.
For me, becoming a mother to a spectacular baby girl shattered my entire glass house. I’ve spent the past nine years walking through the shards of broken glass that remain, while speaking up, advocating for, and voicing my opinions on the dysfunction in our society and families. I watched as those who preferred my opinionless version, drifted away, while others who are also breaking down their own glass houses pulled in closer to me with an unspoken sense of comradery, a sisterhood of support.
The opinionless version of myself has been left behind under the ruble, and in her place is a woman not afraid to use her voice.
