Almost every night during book tour,
I end up talking about the same subject with my audience. My audiences are
pretty much entirely composed of women (though I love you, too, my
emotionally-secure male who dare to come to my events!) and invariably there
will be a woman in the crowd who will stand up and ask how to get courage to …
well, whatever. Courage to write her book, courage to change her life, courage
to travel alone, courage to endure her sorrows, courage to leave her toxic
relationship, courage to start her own business, courage to stand up for
herself.
Now
Is the Time for Women
I always begin my response by saying
something along these lines—that it is down to us now. There has never been a
better moment in human history than right now to be a woman. While there
are still huge stretches of earth where the lot of womankind remains trapped in
subjugation, the industrialized modern western world is the best environment
women have ever had—the best and only shot we ever got at full personhood.
The life that I was offered, in
comparison to the lives of my great-grandmothers, is so radically different
that I might as well be a new human species altogether. I am a female with
biological, political, financial and emotional autonomy. Such a thing was never
heard of before. Ever.
Could things still be better for
women? Yes, of course, and I fight for that, as we all must. Do we have perfect
parity yet? Maybe in Sweden, but certainly not everywhere. Is there still
discrimination and stupidity? Sure. Will there always be? Probably. But the
fact remains—nobody in the history of womankind ever had a better chance
to manifest his or her own life than us, right now.
The
Internal Obstacle
Many of the big external obstacles
(political, legislative, cultural) have been cleared for us by the great and
brave women who came before us. We stand on their shoulders and we should be
grateful.
But now we are left to battle the
lingering prejudices in our own minds that convince us we are not worthy—not
good enough, not strong enough, not talented enough, not brave enough. We must
battle the residual interior voice that says things like:
- We are not important
- We shouldn't raise our hand
- We shouldn't ask to lead the project
- We shouldn't run for office
- We don't deserve a promotion
- We can't set boundaries
- We can't have a child alone
- We can't support ourselves
- We can't defend our vocations
- We can't apply for that grant or that graduate program
- We can’t define our own spiritual and emotional lives
- We shouldn't speak up and say, "No, let's do it my way."
We must battle the interior
prejudice that says we aren't perfect yet, in other words, and therefore we
must hold ourselves back.
And while it's understandable that
about a billion years of being beat down would keep a woman believing she is
imperfect, we really have to get past that obstacle in ourselves.
Because I've said it before and I'll say it again: Imperfection never stopped
men from putting themselves forward. SO DON'T LET IT STOP YOU. (I don’t say
that as an insult to men, either; I like that they throw themselves into the
arena of life. I want us to do it, too.)
Get out of your own way, women. It's
time. And nobody can do this part for you. No act of Congress (no social or
political legislation) can get you out of your own way. Gloria Steinem can't
get you out of your own way, and neither can Oprah, Brené Brown, Martha Beck,
Hilary Clinton, your uncle's dog, your mother's cat, or me.
Don't wait to be rescued or
discovered by anyone, and for heaven's sake, don't wait to be given permission
from the principal's office to take full ownership of your own destiny. You’ve
got to do it yourself.
Step forward out of your own
lingering residual sense of smallness, take up every inch of life that is your
blessed inheritance, and start doing your thing. Today.
It's down to us now—down to you. And
there’s never been a better moment than right now.
Let’s get on it.
