Female Voices

Have you ever read Sojourner Truth's compelling piece "Ain't I a Woman"? You should. It's powerful. It's one that I returned to in my ponderings over The Women's March that followed the 2016 election. She opines: 

"If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them."

 What she said in 1851 holds just as many truths as it did then. I'd like to think we'd come a long way since her statements in 1851, but I know we haven't. Not in race and not in gender. 

Have you ever read Elizabeth Cady Stanton's "Seneca Falls Keynote Address"? She asserts:

"The wife is degraded, made the mere creature of caprice, and the foolish son is heaviness to his heart. Truly are the sins of the fathers visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation. God, in His wisdom, has so linked the whole human family together that any violence done at one end of the chain is felt throughout its length..."

She was arguing for the right to vote and hold property, of course. But her point about the "sins of the fathers being visited upon" the future generations holds just as much truth today as it did in 1848. Just not regarding suffrage. 

Have you ever read the transcript from Anita Hill's "Testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee"? I was still in high school at the time and as such I was wrapped up in my own little world of school events, teenage angst, and college plans. I vaguely recall parts of the hearings on the news and sound bites on the radio. I just read the whole thing. After recounting the numerous times he did not accept her noes, he did this:

"Finally he made a comment that I will vividly remember. He said that if I ever told anyone of his behavior that it would ruin his career. This was not an apology, nor was it an explanation. That was his last remark about the possibility of our going out or reference to his behavior."

Notice that he didn't say anything about how his inappropriate behavior affected her. He doesn't acknowledge that he repeatedly made her endure humiliating and sexually explicit conversations. However, the fact that he does reference that his behavior "would ruin his career," he exposes his character and discloses that he knows what he did was wrong. But only because of how it will impact him. She should keep her mouth shut because of how it will impact him. That was 1991.

Have you listened or read Christine Blasy Ford's recent testimony? It's difficult not to draw parallels to Anita Hill. The fear though goes much deeper. She stated:

"I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming. This was what terrified me the most, and has had the most lasting impact on my life. It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me."

Rape. Terrified. Kill. Every woman's nightmare. Any one of us could be her. Countless of us have been. Numerous of us have made the same choice to remain silent (understandably so). Too few have made the choice to speak up (also, understandably so) .

Too few have felt the courage to confront racism, sexism, harassment, and assault as these women have. Women ought to work together. The violence from one end is indeed felt at the other end. The trauma on us should be the focus; not the consequence for the perpetrators. Our bodies, our minds, and our lives are ours. They belong to us. They've belonged to us all along. 

Voices. Our voices. We need to use them. We need to use them until they're heard. Until they're believed.