We Are More

There is a population of people who identify as a woman saying the Vice President-elect slept her way to the top. If you are one perpetuating this notion, let me say this to you - womxn are more than just their bodies. Your voice matters, your intelligence matters, you matter - regardless of what you have been told, taught or felt.

For a long time, I thought only my body gave me value because it is what those older than me commented on — not my brains, unless I was wrong. If I said something incorrectly or couldn’t get an answer right, then there was no shortage of comments on my brains. Womxn have been prized, shamed, scrutinized, taken, drooled over, and made to be everyone else’s domain other than the person to whom it belongs. It’s way past time to stop.

The objectification and sexism within our culture has trapped some to believe that’s all they deserve and all they get to be. Further, when this idea is successfully perpetuated and voiced, other womxn are hurt in the process.

We now have a female Vice President-elect. All the womxn who voted before us must be celebrating and we need to as well! There are so many examples of womxn with the intelligence and grit to do great things and we must see that we are capable of this too. I am also on a journey to see this in myself and it’s hard to change, hard to see your worth, and believe in the masterpiece that lies beneath that is complex, more than capable, and brilliant.

We are more than our bodies, but we also need to know our sexuality is OK and part of who we are. We are allowed to be sexual. We should have our own desires that don’t need to be shamed as wrong or bad. We are empowered to celebrate our brains and our bodies together and allow them to dance in harmony, in whatever way that looks for you and no one can tell you otherwise. We deserve our autonomy, and our ability to celebrate success without being questioned or making excuses.

When we knock down other womxn for being successful, we knock ourselves down as well. Our patriarchal society thrives on scrutiny of womxn, about power over another, and power over us as womxn. This is not our destiny. We need to look at our womxn role models who fought for their ideas, their leadership roles, and themselves as examples. We all have it within us. You are more than just your body, and so is our Vice President-elect.