What is a Woman: Maya Angelou

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Maya Angelou LA Times

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

~

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

~

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

~

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

~

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

~

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

~

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

~

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

~

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

~~~

She is talking about women. Real women. The history of black women which can ring true for all women. There was a time when all women had no rights, they were the objects and under the control of men. Now we are in a time when men are trying a new way to objectify women by claiming they “are” women. You can make it up but it will never be the same. Plastic surgery, hormone shots, chopping off your dick to be a eunuch. You will never be a woman. You will only be a Eunuch; a guy without a dick. Stay in your own lane and leave us alone. We have fought our fought and won. Now you are making us fight again. The new misogyny. A raping of women, pretending we are one.

What is a Woman: Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Edna St. Vincent Millay (storyinprogress.substack.com)

I, being born a woman and distressed by Edna St. Vincent Millay 

I, being born a woman and distressed

By all the needs and notions of my kind,

Am urged by your propinquity to find

Your person fair, and feel a certain zest

To bear your body’s weight upon my breast:

So subtly is the fume of life designed,

To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind,

And leave me once again undone, possessed.

Think not for this, however, the poor treason

Of my stout blood against my staggering brain,

I shall remember you with love, or season

My scorn with pity,—let me make it plain:

I find this frenzy insufficient reason

For conversation when we meet again.

~~~

Distressed now by men who won’t stay in their own lane. Who want to occupy ours because being a man isn’t good enough for them and they believe the grass is greener. Once again, finding new ways to possess women in sports, prisons, locker rooms, women’s organizations, where we have fought to have our own sacred and safe space. Laws designed to protect us once, we now have to clarify sex and fight once more. XX-XY

What is a Woman: Tacocat

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Man pointing finger at woman who looks down holding papers in office hallway
Now men are trying to tell us we should accept them if they want to be a woman. They are just like “us.” Stay in your own lane boys. Be proud of who you are.

Men Explain Things to Me: Written by Lelah Maupin, Eric Randall, Brianna Mckenna, Emily E Nokes

Explain it to me
Explain it to me
Explain it to me, again

Though I know all about the words you’re spitting out
The floor is yours without a yawn
I already know where this is gonna go (I already know)
Where this is gonna go

Tell me to calm down
Tell me to calm down
Tell me to calm down, again

Don’t tell me what to do
My feelings won’t subdue
Just because you told them to
You’re a cliché, useless in every way (you’re a cliché)
You’re a cliché

Take up the whole sidewalk
Take up the whole sidewalk
Take up the whole sidewalk, again

This land is your reign in the palm of your hand
I walk around so you can stand
You’re in my way every day
You’re in my way, you’re in my way
We get it dude, already heard enough from you
The turning point is overdue

What is a Woman: Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox

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Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox (reddit.com)

Now there was a time
When they used to say
That behind every “great man”
There had to be a “great woman”

But in these times of change
You know that it’s no longer true
So we’re coming out of the kitchen
‘Cause there’s something we forgot to say to you (we say)

Sisters are doing it for themselves
Standing on their own two feet
And ringing on their own bells
Sisters are doing it for themselves, yeah

Now this is a song to celebrate
The conscious liberation of the female state
Mothers, daughters and their daughters too, yeah
Woman to woman
We’re singing with you

The “inferior sex” got a new exterior (yeah)
We got doctors, lawyers, politicians too
Everybody, take a look around
Can you see? Can you see? Can you see?
There’s a woman right next to you

Sisters are doing it for themselves (oh yes, we are)
Standing on their own two feet
And ringing on their own bells
Sisters are doing it for themselves

Now we ain’t making stories
And we ain’t laying plans
‘Cause a man still loves a woman
And a woman still loves a man
(Just the same though)

Sisters are doing it for themselves

There was a time (there was a time)
When they used to say (when they used to say)
That behind every great man
There had to be a great woman

But in these times of change
You know that it’s no longer true
So we’re coming out of the kitchen
‘Cause there’s something we forgot to say to you (we say)

Sister are doing it for themselves
Standing on their own two feet
And ringing on their own bells
Sisters are doing it for themselves

~~

Sister’s are doing it for themselves now and men are trying to take advantage by riding on our rails. They weren’t here before when we had no rights. This is a new form of misogyny these men who want to “be” women and take our power away from us. Walking in our locker rooms, bathrooms, taking advantage of us in sports; ripping our scholarships and trophies away from us, no where can a woman turn these days and feel we have a safe space from these men. A new type of rape of the woman – raping us of our rights. These rights that we have fought long and hard for, which men already had. XX-XY

What is a Woman: Jeannine Vegh

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Wise Woman

Walks Alone.
Stands Tall.
Sees and observes; Questions and speaks.

She is not well loved or even understood – because she knows many things yet to unfold.

People fear her or scold her as she will not deny nor conform.
What they don’t know they will not allow anyone else to either.
Yet others see and acknowledge and accept what she has to offer.

And she would suffer
Humility, yet show a brave woman with stamina and courage.

She would commit herself to a challenge if she would learn.

She would love with her heart even though it might break.

While others are following one by one as the head of the line tells them what to do – she would stand by the side and consider the pros and cons.

If there is a job to do it will be done.

When you need a friend there will be one.

Wise but not perfect; learned and perhaps educated.

A nurturer who remains detached and conscious of her soul; the whole world as it affects one.

The wise woman is not necessarily the leader yet she would succeed in keeping her wits about her and always come out on top.

The wise woman is the person you ought to seek and know.

copyright 2005 Jeannine Vegh

What is a Woman: Helen Reddy

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Copy of the album when it came out in 1972 by EMI

I am Woman – Written by Helen Reddy and Ray Burton

I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back and pretend
‘Cause I’ve heard it all before
And I’ve been down there on the floor
No one’s ever going to keep me down again

Whoa, yes, I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained

If I have to I can do anything
I am strong [(strong)]
I am invincible [(invincible)]
I am woman

You can bend but never break me
‘Cause it only serves to make me
More determined to achieve my final goal
And I’ll come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
‘Cause you’ve deepened the conviction in my soul

Whoa, yes, I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained

If I have to I can do anything
I am strong [(strong)]
I am invincible [(invincible)]
I am woman

I am woman, watch me grow
See me standing toe-to-toe
As I spread my loving arms across the land
But I’m still an embryo
With a long, long way to go
Until I make my brother understand

Whoa, yes, I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained

If I have to I can face anything
I am strong [(strong)]
I am invincible [(invincible)]
I am woman

Oh, I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
I am woman

~~~~~~~~~

No one can understand what it is to be a woman unless you are born in our body. XX-XY

What is a Woman: Marge Piercy

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Group of diverse women in colorful clothing smiling and embracing on a rooftop
A group of diverse women sharing a joyful moment together on a rooftop with a cityscape background

For Strong Women by  Marge Piercy

A strong woman is a woman who is straining.

A strong woman is a woman standing on tiptoe and lifting a barbell

while trying to sing Boris Godunov.

A strong woman is a woman at work

cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,

and while she shovels, she talks about

how she doesn’t mind crying, it opens

the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up

develops the stomach muscles, and

she goes on shoveling with tears

in her nose.

~

A strong woman is a woman in whose head

a voice is repeating, I told you so,

ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,

ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,

why aren’t you feminine, why aren’t

you soft, why aren’t you quiet, why

aren’t you dead?

~

A strong woman is a woman determined

to do something others are determined

not be done.  She is pushing up on the bottom

of a lead coffin lid.  She is trying to raise

a manhole cover with her head, she is trying

to butt her way through a steel wall.

Her head hurts.  People waiting for the hole

to be made say, hurry, you’re so strong.

~

A strong woman is a woman bleeding

inside.  A strong woman is a woman making

herself strong every morning while her teeth

loosen and her back throbs.  Every baby,

a tooth, midwives used to say, and now

every battle a scar.  A strong woman

is a mass of scar tissue that aches

when it rains and wounds that bleed

when you bump them and memories that get up

in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

~

A strong woman is a woman who craves love

like oxygen or she turns blue choking.

A strong woman is a woman who loves

strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly

terrified and has strong needs.  A strong woman is strong

in words, action, in connection, in feeling;

she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf

suckling her young.  Strength is not in her, but she

enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

~

What comforts her is others loving

her equally for the strength and for the weakness

from which it issues, lighting from a cloud.

lightning stuns.  In rain, the clouds disperse.

Only water of connection remains,

flowing through us.  Strong is what we make

each other. Until we are all strong together,

a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.

~~~~~~~~~

Being born a woman is not something you can relate to unless you were. XX-XY

What is a Woman: Agnes Whistling Elk

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From the 2010 French documentary Babies, which is about the different ways children grow up around the world.

“It is law that all things must be born in woman, even things invented by men.” Agnes Whistling Elk (p.61 Medicine Woman by Lynn V. Andrews 1981).

“There are no medicine men without medicine women. A medicine man is given power by a woman, and it has always been that way. A medicine man stands in place of the dog. He is merely an instrument of woman. It doesn’t look that way any more but it is true.” Agnes Whistling Elk (p.1 Medicine Woman by Lynn V. Andrews 1981)

~~~~~~~~

You don’t become a woman, you are born a woman. You can’t understand this unless you were born this way. XX-XY

America 250 – Not Sure if our Founding Fathers Would be Happy

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As we go about celebrating 250 years, I think about how our world has turned upside down and inside out. Has anyone seen the movie Idiocracy (2006)? We are about to send off fireworks as if nothing has happened, just for the sake of having this mind numbing experience. People will have cookouts, drink beer, families will gather together but no one will be conscious of what is happening in our world right now. The end of civilization, the end of human connection, the end of empathy, and valuing humanity. I don’t need to “try” to be negative here, the facts of our present and future are so obvious. Our founding fathers were focused on providing us life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. All of this declaration was to make us free from the crown, so that we might establish our own country and have an ability to create our own rules and decide on our welfare. What cost is this taking from us, as the crown is now Corporate America who could care less about our individual rights, our well-being and our livelihood.

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Attracting the Person Who is Right For You

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Couple holding hands with wedding rings on a wooden slab during outdoor ceremony
Before you say “I Do,” make sure they are a good fit for you. Ask questions, listen, ask more questions to clarify, and this goes on throughout your relationship and into your marriage. As you evolve into this new person and this couple.

Marriage has its ups and downs. There are days when you want to pack it up and leave, and days when you are so very much in love. The strength of a marriage is a testament to commitment, values, faith and of course love. All of these four components must be understood by both of you before you say “I Do.” Let’s examine this a little further.

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