Ramblings of a 'wild' woman on International Women's Day 2022

Unsplash image. Photo by Monica Melton.

I’ve been trying to nap for more than an hour now and it just isn’t happening despite the complete exhaustion. My mind won’t shut off. While I was laying down, I was having thought after thought. Sentences of potential stories were free flowing like an overflowing creek in springtime, and, so, I decided to just get up and start writing.

And now, well, now I don’t remember any of the things I was thinking or at least not in the complete and naturally flowing sentences that were shooting through my mind only 20 minutes ago. Put me in a chair, give me a computer or pen and paper and “SWOOSH” the ideas fly away at warp speed.

It's somewhat frustrating but I’ve decided to just go with it. I’m just going to free flow whatever comes into my head.

I’m writing this on International Women’s Day. Originally, you know, like last summer, I had planned to write something highlighting the importance of this day when it arrived this year. I’m not doing that. I think there’s a lot of “heavy” in the world right now and I just can’t go there right now.

I worked today, as many do, and I had the privilege of covering Farm Credit Canada’s Women’s Day virtual event. (I’m a reporter.) It was wonderful. It was jam-packed full of helpful information from financial tips to learning resiliency. I started the two-hour event laughing because the first speaker was entertaining while also being super informative. I ended the event feeling that calm you get after a good cry, when you know everything will be alright, some how, some way, even if the world is burning down around you. It was well done and I’m grateful to have attended, albeit virtually. (Actually, for me, that bit was like the icing on the cake. Shocker... I love virtual.)

So, what I was thinking, just now when I brought up the whole International Women’s Day bit, I was thinking that we’ve come a long way in just how we celebrate and recognize the day. (Of course, there are wonderful strides with women breaking glass ceilings etc., and, of course, there is still much to do on a variety of fronts from equal pay for equal work to ending violence against women, but I’m not going to talk about that here right now.)

What I realized is that there were so many online virtual events celebrating this day this year, even in my small rural part of the world, that I couldn’t possibly attend all of them, not even virtually. I remember roughly 10 years ago when there was only one event in the entire county. Every year, more women stand up, more women stand together, and more women recognize not only our similarities but also our differences, and we embrace them, and we celebrate them. And we help one another. And it’s wonderful.

When I was a child, being a girl sucked in a lot of ways, and looking forward to the future as a woman, I was a bit petrified of what was to come. Everything felt so restricting, impossible to escape. I mean, right from the get-go we’re being conditioned to fit into the current society’s ideas of female roles versus male roles. (Yes, I do realize that there's been a LOT of societal changes in the past 50 years.)

When I was young, girls were relegated to specific chores in the house - doing dishes, laundry, dusting, vacuuming, and so on. I’m not sure what the boys were doing and I suspect many didn't have chores at all, but to be fair, when I was on our family friend’s farm, aside from dusting or vacuuming, chores were pretty much unisex.

My sister and I would – well, mostly me because she's three years younger than me – would help our friends on the farm with whatever chores were on the list and, unlike the inside chores, these were mostly fun. Hard, but fun. Hauling wood. Mucking out horse stalls. Digging up rocks from the garden. Planting potatoes in the garden. Pumping water from the well. Pulling feathers off dead chickens. (Okay, that last one was sometimes done inside, and it wasn’t fun at all. It was nasty. In. Many. Ways. And it smelled so very bad. And my heart hurt for the chickens.)

Overlooking the chickens, I was lucky in a lot of ways. When I was on the farm, a lot of the time I was treated like just a kid, not a boy or a girl, just a kid. It was great. (This, I learned, wasn’t true at all farms.)

On a side note, there was a lot of down time on the farm, so it wasn't all chores, all the time. Lots of games, lots of adventures, and lots of time spent just chilling. And I was just about to say that we never lacked for something to do because we had amazing imaginations but then I remembered…

“Find something to do or I’ll find something for you to do and you’re not going to like it!” As a kid, you only needed to hear that once before making yourself super scarce. It also really encouraged creativity and innovative thinking.

Okay, back to my "being a girl" memories. I think, for the most part, as a young child I saw the disparity between the sexes most by looking around at the adults in my life. In most couples, the men went to work, while the women stayed home. I didn’t want that, not because there’s anything wrong with that if it’s what you want, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to be a scientist, or a teacher, or a wildlife photographer, or, or, or… and I didn’t want to be forced into a box. I remember being told my options for work would be limited because I was a girl. I couldn’t understand why and when I asked, I never got an answer other than, “Because that’s just the way it is!” (Hilarious twist... years later I did become a housewife and stay-at-home mom, and I loved it.)

When I was a girl, I also noticed the subtle, and often not so subtle, interplay between these men and women calling themselves adults, and it was clear to me that the men were "supposed to be" in charge. (Another side note, I used to think an encyclopedia of ALL the information got downloaded into your brain when you became an adult. I was sure they had all the answers. Adults. All the answers. Nope. Not so much. I'm now 51 and I'm not sure I know even an eighth of the answers, and yes, that's just the first fraction that came to my mind... no stats to back it up.)

Okay, back on track again... Men in charge. No. Not happening.

You know, adults think kids don’t understand what they're saying when they're talking amongst themselves. They do. I did. I heard everything. I listened. I thought about what was said. I wondered. Sometimes, I asked, but mostly I didn’t. (I learned early on that to ask a lot of questions was a bad thing. Luckily, I’ve since reversed that errant conditioning.)

Okay, back to my point. (Wow, that happens a lot, doesn't it? Maybe my spirit animal is a dog. I mean, my attention span is miniscule. And side note to my side note, it's exhausting trying to pay attention when you're natural tendency is not to.) Anyway, back to adults talking amongst themselves while in listening range of children.

I understood what was being said on the face of it. The adults in my childhood world, I mean, I understood what they were saying. What I didn’t or couldn’t understand was the nuance or the why of whatever was being sad and that’s where things take a turn, a wide turn, off course. My interpretations of what was being said weren’t always good and I didn’t know how to articulate that and, sometimes, I didn’t feel safe trying to articulate it. When adults were arguing, I didn’t understand that even if my name was mentioned, it wasn’t really about me. I took it all in. I soaked up everything the adults around me said and did and it didn’t matter if it was my parents, the neighbours, my friends’ parents, teachers, or strangers at the grocery store, I listened. (Side note: I'm a good listener, in case you ever need one.)

My mom often said my dad loved “his boys” more than his daughters. She was talking about the the amount of time he spent coaching hockey or playing hockey. Or ball. (She could be dramatic but, of course, the flipside is that she’s also passionate. My mom is uniquely wonderful in that she has a tremendous capacity to love, to forgive, and to feel life in a robust way, which is not common. She’s also determined, capable, persistent, resilient, and so much more! I’m grateful she’s my mom because I’m certain she is where my empathy comes from. So, thanks, mom.)

Anyway… mom said a lot of things that made it clear that boys were preferred to girls, not just by my dad, but all dads. Every dad, from what I understood, wanted a son and if they didn’t get one, it would be devastating.

It wasn’t just my mom, or my parents for that matter, that said things that conditioned the way I saw myself. But, I do remember a lot of the things my dad and his friends would say about women. Usually, they were halfway through a case of Labatt’s 50. (This was not at all unusual for the time and place.)

In fact, there’s one time I remember my dad drinking with one of his friends while we kids played. My friend (a boy) and I were stopped as we were running by. The dads wanted to chat with the kids. At some point, they (the dads) talked about us (the kids) and how we should elope when I turned 16. In the night, so as not to disturb anyone. But be sure to leave a case of Labatt's 50. No muss, no fuss.

This bothered me. A lot. I felt ashamed somehow. I didn't know why, just that I did. Of course, I see now that there were several reasons this memory stayed with me over the years. I felt like I was a product, a thing to be bartered or traded, not a person. To make matters worse, my value was set at whatever the cost of a case of Labatt's 50 was in the late 1970s. Not much. (To be clear, I'm certain this was not my dad's intention at the time, but you know what they say about intentions....)

Ya, so stuff like that really shapes a way a person learns to see themselves and their gender as a whole.

Knowing that there’s a good chance my dad, who no longer drinks, will probably read this:

"Dad, I’m not mad about this, I'm simply trying to tell the story behind my point. And, just to be clear, I think you’re an amazing human being. I’m proud to be your daughter, and you’ve been a truly wonderful dad and a good friend for most of my adult life, but especially (is that a word?) ever since my life was ripped to shreds way back in 2007. (I’m happy to say the shreds were gathered, and some were kept, while others were not, and what was left over was glued back together. Better than new.) Anyway, I appreciate you and I'm so very grateful to have you in my life. In case I don't say it enough, I love you."

Coming back to my point. Again.

We really need to stop and look at how we've been conditioned to think or believe the things that we do. Some of these beliefs may be fine but some are not. (To be clear, I do understand that “society” is different depending on where you’re born and who you’re born to, and I can only speak for the experience I've had in the society where I was planted and harvested.)

I'm not certain that I've gotten to my point yet. I'm not certain I remember my point or even if I have one for that matter. (Hmmmm.) I think it was something along the lines of women needing to pull back the layers of conditioning that may or may not be impacting how they see themselves and their gender. We've come so far and we have to keep going. We have to make a world where everyone is raised as worthy to be alive no matter their sex or species.* (*I'd prefer we include all animals alongside humans when I say "everyone.")

Okay, so, (I do say that a lot!) I was just about to sign off and I’m realizing that I’ve barely gotten started! No, I won’t list all the ways society has tried to reinforce sexist conditioning throughout the years. I will, however, note a few things from adolescence that stick out right now.

One of the earliest things I remember learning from my mom was that boys could do things society might find questionable and that would be fine with society, but girls couldn’t. She said there was a double standard. She said boys could date as many girls as they liked, kiss as many girls as they liked, and all would be fine. Girls, not so much. And, being an evangelical Christian, she took it one step further to keep me and my soul safe, she said girls had to save themselves for their husbands, no kissing, no sex. She didn’t say sex. I think she may have said it in terms of “do things to make a baby” and I had no idea what she was talking about. What I did understand was the no touching because if a boy touched me or vice versa, I would be ruined, no longer pure, no longer clean, no longer worthy. The boy, of course, would be fine.

In retrospect, and being a mother of two daughters myself, I can understand where she was coming from and what she was trying to do. She was trying to protect me. Girls that had sex were called names. Girls who had sex and got pregnant were sometimes seen as whores of Satan. The boys, of course, were unwitting puppets who couldn’t be held responsible for their biological needs. This still happens today, but it’s not as pervasive as it once was… just watch a movie, listen to a song, or log on to a dating site. There are places and people who believe men AND women should be able to have all the sex they want with whomever they want, provided it's consensual. Without any sort of stigma attached. (I'm one of them.)

On that note, and it’s a bit scary to put this out there, but I'm going to do it anyway. Almost every time I had sex with my husband, I felt like I was doing something sinful. I actually yelled at God in my head, telling him I was married and this was okay, dammit. But, nevertheless, I was married with children and I still felt like I was committing a sin. Seriously. Nuts. It's nuts. Thankfully, I’ve since identified and deleted a few of those triggers, or conditioning quirks, and now I’m probably about as sexually free as the next physically and somewhat mentally healthy woman. (Can I say that if I haven’t had sex in almost a year? Ya, I think it still applies.)

For the record, I believe everyone should have complete autonomy over their bodies from the moment they're old enough to pee on their own.

Ya, so that’s that. Today is International Women’s Day and this has been my free-flowing thought celebration. (Is that a thing? I’m going to say it is a thing. It’s my thing. I write to express myself because I can’t really do it well in any other format. Like, say, during a face-to-face chat.)

Seriously though, I’m trying to think if there’s anything else I want to say but I’m also listening to music on my iPhone, which is set to shuffle, and Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” just came on, and now I'm getting energized. (Bobbing the head energized, not up and dancing energized.) I first heard that song on the radio when I was in Grade 7, I think. It was one of my little sister’s favourite songs at the time. That and Kim Carnes' “Betty Davis Eyes”

Okay, now I’m laughing. (I had to say that because you can’t hear me.) I was wondering about my favourite song when I was her age and I realized it was Nick Gilder's" Hot Child in the City." Seriously. Geez Louise.

Ya, looking back, a lot of the music I listened to in high school - and before - was GINORMOUSLY sexist and not what I’d want my children listening to if I were raising them now. With that said, I’m firmly against censorship, so I probably wouldn’t stop them from listening to it now either. I would, just as I did when they were growing up, I would point out all the ways in which the song was sexist, or questionable in some other way. And while I miss that, I’m sure my daughters do not.

Ooooh. That reminds me of something I’d like to confess. It's a confession about one of the many life lessons I've needed to learn. (I'm far from done learning lessons, by the way. In fact, there's more lessons than I have time on Earth, I think.)

When my girls were growing up, I was very judgemental of other women. Some women, not all. Not many. I mean, I wasn't a bitch or anything like that... in fact, I can count the number of times I've been called that - to my face - on one hand! Yay me!

Okay, so here's an example: I couldn’t stomach the Kardashians. I had a major issue with the examples they were setting. Also, at the time, I equated the choices they made to them not having any substance. That wasn’t fair. My girls called me on it. Of course, as daughters do. Every. Single. Time.

Sometimes (most of the time) it takes me a while to learn a lesson. Luckily for me, my daughters' efforts to re-condition me eventually started to work.

While I wouldn’t choose to live the life of a Kardashian, I can now admit that there are many ways that they (the sisters) act as positive role models. They’re wildly successful (financially speaking) and independent. They don’t stay in chronically unhappy or unsafe relationships. They support one another. (I think?)

Another way they’re good role models is they appear to be, for the most part, at home in their own bodies. (That’s not as easy as it looks.) I’m pretty sure back in the day when my daughter was watching the show – okay, I may have watched a few episodes – I noticed that the biggest thing, maybe even the best thing, they were doing was showing the vulnerability and integrity that’s needed when you realize you’ve been wrong to say you've been wrong and then correct your behaviour, or try to, at least. (I don't even get that one right all the time. Or most of the time. But I do sometimes, which means I'm moving in the right direction.)

While watching those episodes, I noticed the sisters weren’t shy about looking at their choices and saying, “ya, I shouldn’t have done that,” and then they'd go about trying to be better. If you think about it, they’re perfect models for what life is really about – learning, adapting, and growing.

I was wrong when I said they weren’t good role models. I had no right to say that because it wasn’t true, and it really wasn’t nice. (Not that we must be nice all the time. We don't. Not. Any. More. We don't have to smile on demand either.)

Here’s where I’m at now, in this exact moment.

My wish for the world - aside from peace, love, and safety - is for we, as women, to support other women, and those who identify as women. without judgement, without exception, without expectation of anything in return, and, preferably, without comment. We’re all learning, adapting, and growing, just at different paces.

Okay, I’m done now. For real this time. For now.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY!