Builders, Not Construction Workers
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I am a woman like any other woman, and that is, apparently, a problem. This is not a problem concerning the "uniqueness" of each woman, or the preservation of individuality. How can we focus on buying clothes to set us apart from each other when we are being shunned for having a single different chromosome than a man? For the sex organ between our legs that we didn't even have the privilege to choose? Ah, that's right. We are forced to choose which flowery dress patterns are "in-style" for the summer because we've been made to believe that we ourselves are fragile flowers. I am here to tell you, as a woman like any other woman, that we are NOT flowers easily twisted into any shape we're bent into. The only fragility we may fall victim to is that of our bones and muscles in comparison to a large man's. But even then, the most important lesson I've learned is that mind overrides matter. My best friend ran faster than all the boys and girls at school, despite a fracture like the San Andreas fault line running down both of her shins, running almost faster but not quite than she herself. Mind / Matter. A woman, like any other woman, choosing courage over predictable, expected frailty. Women are rarely, if ever, seen in orange uniform as construction workers, but women are the ones building.
Women: the ones that teach daughters to be strong and teach sons that chivalry must not die. Women: the ones that give life because even test tube babies can't compare to those incubated within a woman's womb. Women: we who take our lopsided standards and turn a blind eye to the balance tilting towards the side of something as basic and irrelevant as a penis. Women: we who are shunned for others having sexualized our body parts without our consent; we who fight an equal battle and are paid less for it; we who have been brainwashed to call each other "sluts" for doing what a male "Don Juan" is worshiped for; we who are judged for and without makeup, for wearing too much and too little clothing, for not wanting to be hairless, or for wanting less hair to comb in the morning.
We must not hide in the shadows simply because we are made to believe that we are too fragile, too delicate, for the winter winds. We WILL NOT hide our unshaven legs, or our tampons, or our breast-feeding mothers, or the innate strength we were given as soon as our sex was predetermined to make us weak. We WILL NOT hide our existence from Them, the ignorants, the sexists. We WILL NOT make them sandwiches, or clean their filth, or serve solely to bear their children. We will fight the battle we've been cursed with, and we will DEMAND to be given a just reward. We are not afraid. You think it ended with the 19th Amendment? Well, you're wrong. We are not roses whose petals fall to the floor with a single too-hard tap; we are dandelions. And if they want to laugh and call us good-for-nothing weeds, we will cackle and spring up in every neatly manicured lawn like the weeds we are. And we will dominate. We will demand an equal education and take over the workforce. We will teach our daughters that we are more rock wall than fragile flower. We WILL NOT be reduced to "pretty," foolish things, or to mere domestic duties. We will show them that we can survive. That we are vital in ALL ways. We will remind them that Jesus Christ could not have existed without a woman, and we will be praised like the goddesses we are.