March 8, 2021
Female Every Day
Why did it take twenty years of me living as a girl and young woman in the world to learn about the only day of the year dedicated to celebrating women globally and heralding international calls to action for our collective equality?
I know the answer lies in the long tail of patriarchy. Yet, that doesn’t satisfy my curiosity about how patriarchy does what it does. How did an entire system activate and operate for so many decades to keep International Women’s Day outside of the list of annual celebrations that were observed in my family, my school, my community when I was a girl? What is that system silencing and shutting down today? A torrent of examples pours out of my mind: all the patriarchal insults I and the girls and women around me experience. It is overwhelmingly easy to conjure up examples of patriarchy at work today.
And so today — 110 years after the birth of this day — I’m thinking about all of this. I’m celebrating International Women’s Day this year by sharing the ocean of thoughts and feelings that are coming up for me on this one day of being female in the world: March 8, 2021.
I’ll start with the irony of the robocall I got today as I was writing this piece. The call came in at the same time I was expecting a call, so I answered it. Making the mental pivot from a head and heart filled with reflections on what it feels like today, on this very day, to be a woman and a mother to daughters and a female entrepreneur, I heard a man’s voice say “Hey guys, can I speak to the parents of ____?” referencing one of my daughters by first name. Starting a call to me like that followed by the mention of one of my daughter’s names was a double threat to this mama. My reply was “No. No you definitely cannot. Who is this? Why are you starting a call with ‘Hey guys…’ and where are you calling from?” He responded with a familiar refrain when I exercise my boundaries as a woman: “Whoa! You need to take a chill pill.” I didn’t chill. I persisted: “Who is calling? Where are you calling from?” to which he responded “Forget it! You’re a bitch! You suck *ss!” before he hung up.
Now as I write this, an image of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the mic of the House last year talking about her male Republican colleague calling her “a f***ing bitch” as she passed him on her way into work made me feel the power of sisterhood. And so today, in honor of International Women’s Day 2021, I’d like to give a shout out to sisterhood for being my favorite chill pill for detoxing from the patriarchy. The more global and the more broadcast, the better.
But living in this patriarchy isn’t always such a swift kick to the gut. More often it’s a cunning force, a soul slash by a thousand cuts. I think of the women activists who birthed International Women’s Day in 1911 out of their work in the socialist movements in America and Europe. They insisted on an inclusive feminism by fighting for the rights of working class women and created an international day to honor women and women’s equality.
Disconnecting from the patriarchy takes effort and intention and courage.
But I didn’t learn about them in school. I didn’t learn about many women from anywhere in history or English or math or science or art. The exceptions were the women who gained a voice and a place in history through marriage to someone with power or through sheer defiance. I have always loved the defiants — their stories were siren calls to my female self from a young age. the writer or artist or exceptionally brilliant mind or sick of it girl or woman who insisted on locking her voice into the human story despite the threats to her safety and security and dignity. Of course the stories and voices of Black and brown people, especially those who were also women, were notably missing from my formative classrooms, too. After all white supremacy and patriarchy are co-conspirators; they’re part of the same macro system, out in the world operating 24/7 in an infinite and ruthless attempt to preserve the white male power by dividing and conquering every perceived threat churned up when anyone else dares to be their full, authentic self.
Being female in a patriarchal system is like playing a game of telephone where the wires are designed to detect and transmit only some voices and ignore or silence all others. I think about the impact of this phenomenon over the years since the birth of International Women’s Day and it helps me understand how it took over 80 years for the manifestation of the work of the mothers of International Women’s Day to land in my consciousness.
This also helps me remember that although those wires may be the legacy systems we are offered and often unconsciously connect to in our lives, we can always choose to disconnect, too. Disconnecting from the patriarchy takes effort and intention and courage. And in my experience, when one woman makes even one small choice that empowers herself, she takes others higher, too. She discovers her sources of inspiration and innovation and she transmits them widely.
When I think about what I love about being female every day, it’s this: when women step into the work of making equality the reality, it’s never just about us as individuals or our families alone. It’s about forging the greatest good for all of us – for me, for us, and for you. When the matriarchy rises, we’re not calling the patriarchy for a consult: “Hey guys, your wires are unacceptably flawed, so we want to talk about designing new ones.” We’re coming together in spaces we create to do the work of getting free, together. We’re natural power brokers. We collaborate, we create, we birth, we vision, we organize, we reimagine, we listen, we take action. We tap the powers only we have, and we become unstoppable quickly. I love all of that. I celebrate that today.
We’re coming together in spaces we create to do the work of getting free, together. We’re natural power brokers. We collaborate, we create, we birth, we vision, we organize, we reimagine, we listen, we take action. We tap the powers only we have, and we become unstoppable quickly. I love all of that. I celebrate that today.
Today I’m wondering, “Would knowing this day existed for my first 20 years of living female have made being a girl in a world that isn’t made for girls to thrive just a little easier, even a wee bit less of an lonely and harsh experience that tells us what we’re not, we can’t, we don’t?
Today I’m feeling grateful that I learned of this day when I did, and that I can use my voice to honor it, mark it, claim it. I’m remembering so well the joyous time our student community had celebrating International Women’s Day in 1992. On our gem of a campus in the middle of Vermont — where early March is still very much winter — a group of us representing many, many countries and cultures planned a beautiful event to honor our global feminist sisterhood. I vividly recall the sights and sounds and smells that filled the space — a symphony of languages and accents, an artful exhibition of foods from students’ countries and cultures that filled the tables around the room, and the exquisite tapestry of colors and textures in the mix of faces and fabrics. What I remember most about that night was the warmth of connection and freedom I felt in that room. The cozy, colorful respite from being female out there, and the chance to celebrate being female in a safe and supportive and empowered community, just for one day.
Right next to my grateful memories sits the grief. I’m all too aware of all the girls and women around the globe today who haven’t yet discovered International Women’s Day, and even more of the ones who are suffering in dark places — physically, emotionally, mentally, politically, culturally — as a direct result of their being female.
I am reflecting on all the ways 2020 was a total decking for women. As Jes my company’s marketing and project manager says “2020 was an incredibly hard year for the sisterhood.” The pandemic has been a spotlight on what sexism looks like in homes and workplaces, and the tolls it takes on women and children. I’m devastated that nearly 2.2 million women (primarily women of color) have left the labor market during the course of the pandemic so far. I’m so sad that my daughters tell me not all parts of high school in a pandemic are bad, because they find some respite in the little boxes of their Zoom classrooms from the entrapping little boxes society wants to squeeze them into and the indignities they experience when they’re out in the bigger world.
There is a long road ahead for the millions of women attempting to return to the job market. There is also a long road ahead for my daughters, too. They are quite savvy at seeing the patriarchy in action, because I have taught them to be. Their awareness and knowledge doesn’t rescue them from the realities, but I believe it protects them. When I observe their experience, I see them in the ring with the constant forces trying to keep them small, quiet, nice, and out of view. I see them stumble from the blows. On the good days, I see them find their power and then rapidly direct their own acts of defiance. Some days I am watching them discovering their self-defined boundaries of existence at the very same time they’re holding the line to defend them.
Today my purpose as their mother is to fill them up with the fortitude I have learned from those who came before me, the women who defied, who held the lines, who created this day 110 years ago so a college student could feel the transformative moment of one day dedicated to women’s power and carry it forward throughout her whole life, transmitting it in a thousand ways on any given day. Today I know that my girls carry in them the legacy of so many girls and women who passed us the batons of defiance in the name of freedom and sisterhood. I know that they know them as sisters, because I do. This is the best evidence I have that my girls will be heard, respected, and known in their own right — and that they will pass the baton onward to the sisters to come.
Today I’m also thinking of the wins for the sisterhood in 2020 and 2021 so far. We are living in a time when we get to see women making new systems capable of leaving the patriarchy and white supremacy in the dust. And we get to join them. We saw Stacey Abrams and Fair Fight preserve democracy in a state that has a long history of voter suppression. and we sent them our dollars. We’ve seen Bridgett Floyd work tirelessly this year to preserve the memory of her brother, George, by organizing rallies and launching an internship program for young Black men at Texas A&M University-Commerce called the Be His Legacy Internship Program. We — especially those of us who work in communications — cheered when The Biden-Harris White House appointed the country’s first all-female senior communications staff. We have Vice President Kamala Harris breaking one barrier after another, and the man who as Senator created the legislation that became the Violence Against Women Act in the 90’s as our President. We have been transfixed by the talent of a young Black female poet named Amanda Gorman, who filled the inaugural stage with her demand to be seen, heard, and perfectly recorded in history. These are welcome today; for every little cut, they give me a balm made of hope and progress and fortitude and safety. And I need that, I count on that, for tomorrow I will be female again.
Originally published March 8, 2021 on Medium.
Nancy is a Baltimore native who came to communications and marketing through her work in public health. In 2014 she took an entrepreneurial leap of faith to start Asana Consulting and she found her wings.
