Let's Hear it for the Girl!

I love that my birthday month is also social worker’s month (shout out to the social workers!) and women’s history month. There is just so much for me to celebrate being both a social worker and a woman. However, this month can also be a sobering moment. I think about all the rights that we have worked for and how some of those rights continue to be challenged. I think about how I have been socially programmed to monitor the amount of masculine and feminine energy that I exude. I reflect on all the conversations that I have had with female clients about consistently not feeling like they are enough. Enough is enough.

Physically, women carry a lot of power. We can create and carry life. We push through cramps and other hormonal ailments every month. The physical strength that we have is incredible. Yet, we tend to focus on our body being too curvy, or not enough curvy. We worry that our face isn’t symmetrical enough (fun fact: no one’s face, or body is perfectly symmetrical). We minimize our own power, which makes it even harder to fully embody the woman that we want to be. Sometimes, we even lie to ourselves about the strength within our own bodies.

Mentally, women are not only often the problem solvers, but we also tend to be the relationship creators. We are often the managers in the home, navigating conflict among our children, our friends, and our colleagues. We create spaces for people to gather and are often the most gracious hostess. We cultivate a greater power together simply by being in one another’s presence. We see emotion and aren’t afraid to feel them. Yet, women can be seen as “catty” and presented as people who are always competing with one another. When we buy that rhetoric, we minimize the gift that we have in being able to nurture one another and ourselves.

Spiritually, women hold an energy to influence others, we know how to manifest things that we want and often pour energy into making that reality. We can walk into a room and draw attention, whether in heels or sneakers, we can send a message without every opening our mouth. Yet again, we are told that we are “too much”. We are told to tone down ourselves even as girls, when we are doing nothing that being ourselves.

This month, and every day moving forward, I hope that we can work on not buying the hype and instead investing in our truth. I learned a long time ago that if I am not intentional in defining who I am, someone else will do it for me. If we buy all the negative connotations without considering that perhaps those who are saying these things may be trying to suppress us out of fear or an inability to understand who we truly are, we run the risk of perpetuating a disempowering cycle. Thus, in order for ourselves and humanity to heal, we need all women to be fully themselves. When we are fully woman as we define her, generations and the world benefit.