Smiling At the Future

A while back, over at the old blog, I wrote a post called “Well-Behaved Can Make History.”  (The full piece is still up on my ‘expert contributor’s page’ at www.workherway.com  here.)

In it, I largely spoke about women’s roles in culture and in the workplace, and how they’d evolved from the Mad-Men-like stay-at-home moms and steno-pool girls to clawing our way to the top while behaving more and more like men in the process.  We clawed our way into the boardrooms, but when we got there we got so used to having the claws out that we forgot to put them back in.

And so I ended the piece with this:

Bright Future Ahead

….

But I see us continuing to head this direction. To continue forging our own paths – together. And I think that’s the best way to go from here.

We can be well-behaved if we want to.  After all, our deepest power doesn’t come when we’re breaking down doors.  It comes when we speak our truth with dignity and grace, having finally given ourselves permission to own who we are and to own our truth.

I have to admit it.  One thing that kept me out of and away from church for quite some time was that I didn’t see women like me there a whole lot.  I found it difficult to be a strong, confident, smart woman amongst a seeming sea of voices telling me I must be weak.  The message that I heard a great deal was ‘be quiet, needy, codependent….don’t think, don’t speak, just bake, and sew and be as amenable and cute and as sweet as possible….be the weaker vessel.”

The message I got was that I couldn’t be ‘me’, the way God made me, with the gifts and talents that He bestowed me with.  I had to be what other people wanted me to be and fit in.  And that didn’t work for me.

And to be honest?  I hated Proverbs 31.  No.  Seriously.  Hated it.  Mostly because you have no idea how often that passage was thrown in my face as evidence of me not being a ‘good enough woman’.  But then I took another look.  And man!  That woman is busy!  She gets a lot of stuff done!  And she does stuff all on her own, like ‘she considers a field and buys it.’

And it turns out that many of those who told me that being cute and quiet and people-pleasing really did get it wrong.  Verse 30 tells us “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain”

As I looked again, I saw things in Proverbs 31 like:

She girds herself with strength And makes her arms strong….

Strength and dignity are her clothing and she smiles at the future

She opens her mouth with wisdom……

I have many female friends who struggle with these things within the church as well.  And many of us left, or are leaving.  And yet, they also all struggle with what that means — the loss of a sisterhood, and the effect that has on their faith.  It’s tough.

Fight The Good Fight

At the same time, I had to admit that I become disappointed when I see good people give up the good fight.  A political example:  Evan Bayh.  I’ve liked Evan Bayh for years and anticipated (and hoped for) a future Presidential bid from him.  Then suddenly, he announced he would not run for another term and would  longer be serving in the Senate.  Why?  Because, he said, Congress is becoming increasingly dysfunctional, partisan, and not doing ‘the work of the people’.

My reaction?  Disappointment.  Disappointment rooted mostly in wondering what will be left if the good guys ‘give up and go home’.  Disappointment that he wouldn’t stay and ‘fight the good fight’ and stand up for ‘doing the work of the people.’

Be The Change You Want to See In the World

That is honestly one of my favorite quotes — ever.

And as I began to think through these things, it occurred to me:

What about the next generation?  The girls who are coming behind us on those paths we’ve forged now?  What about the other women who are also searching?  Why not stay?  Why not stay and be the example?  Why not stay and begin to talk about these things, with dignity and with grace?  Why not find and form a strong sisterhood that serves to stay and ‘be the change.’

What do you think?  Is it possible to ‘stay’ and to be the change?  In what ways can we do this?  How would that work in your world?

Love,

deb

This entry was posted on Monday, April 5th, 2010 at 9:56 am and is filed under Be the Change, Faith, Hope, Love, Pressing On, Who You Are. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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