Another year and another International Women’s Day. This year’s theme is “Give to Gain” which has been chosen as a way to highlight that “meaningful progress on gender equality requires deliberate contributions from governments, institutions and individuals. When we invest in women’s safety, rights and leadership, we strengthen societies as a whole”, is the official statement for this year. I would like to believe that we are making meaningful progress on gender equality, but coming this year as it does, hot on the (high) heels of the - “Cute Girls only” - revelations of the Epstein files, there’s been a lot of public ruminating, and disappointment, about how our current societal systems came to be so distorted in their views of what women’s safety and rights actually means.
Attitudes about women and how girls should behave and look like are still so entrenched, and as the recent disclosures highlight, nor are they confined to less-developed countries or just one sector of society. Women anywhere could have told you that, if only men would listen. Mistreatment of women is rife and it’s everywhere. Until we dismantle the structures at their source and seed new constructs in their place, we will continue to wade around in this murky twilight zone where half of society is championing women’s rights and the other half is trampling all over them.
It’s hard to know where to start though, as all-encompassing as the brainwashing has been. Should we start with the patriarchal religions, who have indoctrinated their followers to be fearful and obedient and believe that God is male, the all-knowing, benevolent, Father, and that woman, Eve, is the original sinner? Or with the history books that have been written to ignore many of the vital achievements and contributions women have made to the development of our civilisations? Or shall we skip straight to the media, but oh, such a long list there too, of women being hired to look pretty to attract more viewers, while the male moguls did the serious work and got the serious money, and helped themselves to “cute young girls” in between the adverts all designed to keep women feeling inadequate or ugly or unnatural.
And then there’s social media, with its own insidious way of blurring what is real and what is not: a free haven for lurking narcissists with an unhealed mother wound to create fake profiles and mansplain their way round Facebook; or for sexual predators to groom unsuspecting victims. And a special mention for the married men who slide their way grubbily into your messages with boring predictability, or who make sure never to comment visibly on your posts, but like every single Story out of the public - aka girlfriend’s - eye.
I wonder what these institutions will “Give to Gain” to protect women’s rights when they are so driven by their own agenda, their own gain? Can we really trust governments, institutions and individuals to “make deliberate and significant contributions for the progression of gender equality”?
As with anything, education plays a big part in creating lasting change. And as people are fond of saying, education starts at home. But how does that work when the parents themselves are entrenched in societal stereotypes? Fathers have a big responsibility in all of this. Children learn from observation and how the father treats the mother then shapes what degree of gender equality that child (male or female) will find acceptable as it grows up. Many parents, unconsciously or not, also end up grooming their daughters: what clothes to wear; what makes a girl look pretty; what’s a nice way for a girl to behave; over-protecting and therefore suggesting women as the “weaker” sex; assigning rigid gender roles (e.g. the man deals with the finances, the woman cooks); suitable jobs for women; and so it goes on and so it gets repeated. And in the background, the ever-present television and social media devices keep reinforcing these same messages.
Luckily, though, throughout history there have always been some women somewhere whose inner spark has refused to dim! And with quiet - and sometimes not so quiet! - determination they have continued to show the way forward: helping women who have been shouted down to find their voice again; reminding them of their truth; empowering them to say the “No” they really mean instead of a “Yes” they feel they should; teaching them that setting and sticking to boundaries is good not bad; and that unconditional love means putting your own oxygen mask on first. It’s a long haul, but slowly and surely, the tide is turning.
One of the most effective ways we can step into our own power as women, is to understand the polarity of our own energy and how to use it. Once we become familiar with our inner masculine as well as our inner feminine, we can learn how to call on either when needed and balance both, because it’s when we are in that state of sovereign wholeness that we are at our most powerful. And the more of us who are able to shine steady in that state of unwavering balance, the more we raise the frequency of everyone - men, women and the planet - around us. That’s something we too can “give to gain”, a conscious participation to International Women’s Day rather than just a passive celebration of another media-manipulated event.