“If all of us acted in unison as I act individually, there would be no wars and no poverty. I have made myself personally responsible for the fate of every human being who has come my way.” -Anais Nin
As a kid, I was told the real power of the crucifixion of Christ was not that it happened, but that there were people to bear witness to the act. People saw and were able to deliver first-hand their testimony.
I testify to change hearts and minds.
I travel the world, because I believe in the power of connection and community. I believe in the beauty of humanity and the gift of mercy. I travel to help strip bare the man-made constraints of culture and language and all the other social barriers we have created to keep us apart.
I travel so I can testify.
To deliver a testimony.
I am a connector. I help connect people, ideas, and organizations. I am a builder of community and the foundation of my building is based on the rock of social justice. As I share my thoughts on social justice and some of my personal beliefs on community, I hope, in turn, you will share your thoughts with me.
I believe God’s love for the world is anactive and engaged love, a love seeking justice and liberty for all. I believe we cannot just be observers to pain and suffering, because I believe in the inherent dignity and value of all humans. So I testify:
If my sister in Angola is not safe, then we are all responsible.
Every child that goes to bed hungry, whether across the world or up the street, is my child.
And my child deserves dignity and honor. My sister deserves to be seen, loved, acknowledged and cared for.
So I bear witness.I bear witness to confirm the right of persons and peoples to determine their own destiny and daily lives; to live in peace and security; and to flourish in freedom. We all have the right to live in a safe and secure place. Freedom is our divine right. We all should be free to move beyond past limitations and become all we were created to be.
I cannot be of service to people whom I am separate from physically or mentally. I can have no degrees of separation–we are one community. We must build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together.
We must work together to conceive and build the good community, society and world we want and deserve to live in. Robert Ingersoll says we should give to every human being every right that we claim for ourselves. I could not have said it better.
In a real community, no one is invisible or unworthy. Not my child nor my sister. So I bear witness to make sure they are seen and heard.
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How about you:
Do you bear witness to another’s suffering? Do you testify of their struggle?
Do you believe that giving voice to another’s struggle promotes global freedom and community?
What are your thoughts on the pursuit of social justice?
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About Desiree:
Desiree is a consultant, strategist, coach, speaker, storyteller and explorer. She uses her superpowers–her voice, sense of adventure and belief in the transformative power of community–to help organizations design programs that create unrestricted revenue, volunteers and advocates.
I was taking photos at a benefit concert the first time I heard Beth Roberts talk about shaving her head to fight injustice. She had long blonde hair and the most sincere smile I had ever seen.
Beth was sharing the vision for Bald Solidarity, a Seattle-based non-profit organization committed to ending injustice for women around the world through fundraising and social advocacy. She spoke of her time as a teacher in Bangladesh. She spoke of girls sold into slavery and given to marriages they never wanted. She told of widows left on the streets with nothing because they no longer had value. Then she talked about women in the Western world—so obsessed with beauty and appearance, so tortured by trivial decisions like haircuts and lipstick.
She said something that day that changed me:
“Hair is just a marker of our identity, and giving it up is our way of choosing to support women around the world who don’t have much choice at all. We think making a difference begins with making a statement. A bold one.”
I was hooked.
I stared at Beth, camera forgotten by my side, and wondered how I could ever shave my head willingly, yet also knowing that I was definitely going to do it.
Then it hit me—it came down to a simple choice: my hair or my voice. So I chose my voice.
Sure, shaving my head was terrifying, but I knew Beth was on to something. I could support the cause with my money and walk away unchanged, or I could support the cause with my hair and never be the same again.
The first time I shaved my head we raised more than $2,500 for a local organization fighting human trafficking. It was November and my head was freezing.
Inner Wonders
Everything changed that day. That was the day I realized the wonders inside of me were so much more important than what was on the outside. I’ve always known God had a better grasp on who I really was, because my heart mattered so much more to Him than my hair did (or my clothes, or my car, or my cell phone). But for the first time in my life I could see it too.
I felt beautiful and empowered—it no longer mattered that I was the single girl with the crooked teeth and love-handles who sang a little too loud in church, because now I was the bald girl—a little crazy in a good way.
I’ve shaved for Bald Solidarity twice and I know I am likely to do it again, because if I ever have a daughter I want to look her in the face and say, “Baby, we fight for what we believe in and we look out for others even when they live on the other side of the world.”
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About Sarah:
I’m more likely to answer to Sars than Sarah. That’s because years ago my brothers started calling me Sars and, as the name implies, it was infectious. I’m a visual journalism grad from Western Washington University and a self-proclaimed writer-photographer-Jesus-lover-painter-adventurer-foodie. I have a near obsession with ending injustice and I’m a sucker for a good cause.
“Bottom line, we don’t realize how much we don’t realize and we should be very humble in our place in the world and within our culture.” –Ken Wytsma, Founder, The Justice Conference
I am from bobotie and milktart and the southernmost tip of Africa.
In primary school I earned A’s learning the names of Portuguese traders like Bartolomeu Dias who sailed around that Cabo de Boa Esperanza–the Cape of Good Hope–for the first time and Vasco da Gama who first reached India via Africa.
What I didn’t learn was the name of a man or a woman bought and sold as slaves by traders at Portuguese outposts, like the castle at Elmina on the Gold Coast of Africa.
Until recently, these stories were all separate in my head.
Until recently, I also didn’t know that a simple nursery rhyme is part of perpetuating this horrific past.
This Is Not It
When I attended the Justice Conference in Portland last month, I listened as Ken Wytsma, founder of the conference, unpacked the concept of “justice.”
He demonstrated just how insidious injustice could be by telling us a story. In November 2011, Ken traveled to Cape Coast, Ghana, to research the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade and also film a media project with poet Micah Bournes. While there, Ken spoke to a local scholar who had received his PhD in History in England on the slave trade. He asked for evidence of the widespread gender violence … and if anything was in writing.
That’s when he heard about a song that popped up in Portuguese diaries of the time, a song used by traders to pick a woman for the night.
Where the song ended, determined which woman was selected for the night. The scholar then began to sing it in his heavy accent:
“Eenie Meenie Mini Moe …”
Hearing these words, even in a crowd of 4,000 people, hit me like a machete in my stomach.
How have I missed this? How have I perpetuated this?
While Elmina castle is infamous for the buying and selling of slave souls, somehow I’ve missed this other story happening on the sidelines of the slave horror: The story of prostituted women lined up to serve the slave traders’ sexual whims.
Women marginalized even in the margins.
Now that I know, I hear the echo of this counting-out rhyme in my head as words streaming out of Portuguese buyers’ mouths. Men counting out to determine a woman’s fate.
Now I hear these words, thick as rope, woven around the women, tying them to a destiny of diminishment.
I am not ignorant to the power of words to tie up and enslave.
I know the teeth that can sink into vowels and consonants. I am not ignorant to the degradation that can be embedded and perpetuated down the generations. This very rhyme also has thick ugly racist connotations; so much so that in 2003 two passengers sued Southwest Airlines for emotional distress when a steward jokingly employed the rhyme to encourage passengers to find a seat.
But what if I didn’t know before?
I’ve been wondering whether we can we perpetuate the evil, even in our unknowing? Does not knowing and saying the words, carry on the diminishing?
I don’t know, but it makes me sick that I didn’t know. That this story could be so veiled to my seeing and my hearing.
It makes me sick that too many of us still don’t know.
This one thing I do know: Now that I know how these words were formed in the mouths of abusers, these words will not be spoken in my home or in my presence. I will do my utmost to educate and stop the lineage of injustice through these words wherever I can.
Structural Injustice
“My point in telling the story was the structural injustices that can so easily crop up in our life,” Ken Wytsma told me in a message. “I can grow up and sing an innocent rhyme while playing, without realizing the long history that taints the same rhyme for different people … Something can be harmless to me, but harmful to others. Bottom line, we don’t realize how much we don’t realize and we should be very humble in our place in the world and within our culture.”
Historians estimate 28 million Africans were violently removed and cast into slavery, mainly in colonies in North America, South America and the West Indies.
My dear SheLoves friends, I would love to hear your response:
Did you know this dark echo in the story of this counting-out rhyme?
Do you think it matters if we don’t know? Do you perpetuate the injustice, or not?
Now that you know, what will you do?
Any other thoughts or comments?
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About Idelette:
I like soggy cereal and I would like to go to every spot on the map of the earth to meet our world’s women.
I dream of a world where no women or girls are for sale. I dream of a world where women and men are partners in doing the work that brings down a new Heaven on earth.
My word for the year is “Roar,” but I have learned it’s not about my voice rising as much as it is about our collective voices rising in unison to bring down walls of injustice.
I have three children and this place–right here, called shelovesmagazine.com–is my fourth baby. I am African, although my skin colour doesn’t tell you that story. I am also a little bit Chinese, because my heart lives there amongst the tall skyscrapers of Taipei and the mountains of Chiufen. Give me sweet chai and I think I’m in heaven. I live in Vancouver, Canada and I pledged my heart to Scott 11 years ago.
I believe in kindness and calling out the song in each other’s hearts. I also believe that Love covers–my gaps, my mistakes and the distances between us. I blog at idelette.com and tweet@idelette.
Image credit: Woman (Mbororo) in Foumban, Cameroon. Originally published 1919.
“A living nightmare,” is how she describes her childhood.
As I listened to her, I had to get over my stunned disbelief that this open, friendly, confident-looking young woman with the bright smile had come through a soul-destroying childhood. She made one statement on that day that had me thinking and praying for the life-freeing gift I saw in her.
Her words, simple and clear:
“I want to start by saying that I have forgiven all the people mentioned, and I am not sharing what happened to dishonour them in any way.”
This statement could be unremarkable until you realize the size of the list of people she cares not to dishonour by telling her story:
There’s the father who raped her and took photographs of her naked body. Then he let his friends rape her for a price.
There’s a mother who stayed with that father, until her attempted suicide at age 13 forced the secrets out in the open. Then her mother blamed her for the divorce.
There were the countless, faceless men who used her body as a playground when she started first stripping, then prostituting.
There was the pimp who threatened her life any time she said “no,” to anyone or anything.
There were professionals who stole her hope by telling her she would never function normally in society.
There was the man who raped her–interrupting her healing process–even while she was grieving the loss of her beloved grandmother.
Just when I started to wonder if a person could really forgive this much violation, she joyfully shared how she recently offered forgiveness to her mother. She’s grateful her mother received it and apologized. “We are now on our way to rebuilding our relationship,” she told me. Her willingness to forgiveness has put her on the road to reconciliation.
Understanding Forgiveness
I’ve always thought that Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness is one of the hardest things He asks us to do. It goes against our instinct for payback, against my independent spirit that says, “I’m a big girl, I can deal with difficult people myself.” Listening to this beautiful woman tell her story against the backdrop of forgiveness makes me wonder if I just don’t “get it,” the way she does.
She “gets” the helplessness of trying to do things her own way. She “gets” the destruction that comes with holding on to hurt, anger, resentment and pain. Going her own way led her to mental breakdowns, suicide attempts and entrapment in the sex trade. As I watched her tell her story, I realized that–more that anything–now she also “gets” the relief and release that comes from finally surrendering to God’s way.
Brand-new in her faith since coming to Mercy Ministries, she has fallen in love with her Creator. Her eager-to-follow-Jesus attitude, which lights up her smile in a new way, also makes her willing to go along with anything He asks.
I imagine that when He says, “Forgive,” her question is not, “Why should I?” but rather: “How, Lord?”
When He responds: “As I forgave you,” she might say, “Oh, like that?”
Freedom
The fresh memory of His forgiveness and the overwhelming relief and release she experienced through that, frees her to forgive all the people who made her childhood such a nightmare. That is a life-freeing gift.
Lord, keep the memory of the joy of your forgiveness fresh in my mind, so I no longer feel burdened by your command to forgive but am, instead, freed by it.
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Dear SheLoves friends:
Is there someone in your life you need to forgive?
Do you know or remember the sweet taste of Jesus’ forgiveness?
Any thoughts or comments you’d like to share?
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About Musu:
My life is lived out of the calling “to advance Christ-centred work.” I am currently Director of Marketing and Development at Mercy Ministries, working to get the word out about the life-transforming work that takes place here. Prior to my work at Mercy, I directed a Crisis Pregnancy Centre, studied Christianity and Culture at Regent College and co-led women’s programs at my local church. I have four great children and am married to Steven, a gift to me from the Creator.
“I wish to battle against the perspective that some people are ordinary and others are great … I really believe people can live ordinary lives in extraordinary ways.”
Every woman who has given birth knows this is no ordinary feat. Yet, we are quick to reduce the enormity of our task to a brief remembering, a quaint vignette.
The truth is, every day we do the extraordinary.
We scrub floors on chaffed knees. Treat man, woman, child with dignity, with care. We climb corporate ladders. Extend our hands to the weak. We speak up when it’s uncomfortable. Rise at 3am to feed our babes.
We lead protests.
Carry petitions to the seat of Parliament. We train young eyes to seek Heaven. Deliver lasagna to the family next door. We watch for signs of Spring erupting all around us.
It’s extraordinarily normal women, like Andrea Dunbar, who make the world go round.
I first met Andrea in her tidy little bungalow in New Westminster, BC. The same house where her daughter Eden, was delivered by her father, a nurse, on the bathroom floor. The same home where the kitchen was full with the scent of fresh baking and the living room brim with the found and the made.
When I first asked to share Andrea’s story she declined, feeling she lived too much of a conventional life. For years I’ve hoped for a change of heart. This month, upon my return to British Columbia’s snowy interior, I got my wish.
“I regret my response to you when you [first] asked me to do this … I wish to battle against the perspective that some people are ordinary and others are great. I really believe that people can live ordinary lives in extraordinary ways,” she says from the small town of Mackenzie, where Andrea and her small family are spending the year with her in-laws.
While her husband, Robbie, works at the hospital, she is trying out homeschooling and getting out into the great outdoors with her two kids as often as possible.
Andrea is a public health nurse. When we first met she worked on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside at a clinic that served many prostitutes and lower income women. Each workday she’d bike the 50-kilometer round-trip.
To those around her, Andrea is a source of inspiration, quietly challenging them with the daily choices she makes.
“She is very conscious of her stewardship of this earth,” says her friend, Renice. “In a way that is not at all brash, she makes every effort to care for the earth and the people in it.
She goes beyond recycling. She uses only cloth diapers, buys local and keeps her home organic inside and out. Aside from all that is “green” related, she supports local talent, whether it be art or music and quietly engages others to do the same. She loves to surround herself with all things beautiful even if it’s as simple as a single flower.
Andrea is a modern-day Eve. Seeking to live as a daughter loved by God, desiring her Father’s purposes, longing to look more like Jesus.
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In her own words …
Faith to me means … growing.
What I mean by that is … the people of faith that I most admire continue growing throughout their lives. When I was at Trinity Western University, 10 years ago, and thought I knew everything, the buzz word that I and my friends never wanted to describe us was “complacent.” When I was in university, I also greeted strangers with, “Did you know that Jesus loves you?” While my approach to people has changed–or “grown”–over the years, I still feel just as strongly about not becoming complacent. Knowing that I will continue to grow and learn, helps me look forward to getting older, despite the pervasive North American disdain for aging.
One of my favourite songs describes the Source of growth, life, beauty:
All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things out of us
All around
Life is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You
-”Beautiful Things” by Michael and Lisa Gungor
When I was little I … didn’t want my dad to touch me. I have a photo of my bewildered dad trying to pick me up. I am about 12 years old, my face is red, I am crying and my arms are folded self-consciously over my chest. My dad was a man of integrity and was simply trying to connect with his daughter in a playful way. However, my trust and innocence were destroyed by another man in my life, a close relative. He was a very religious man who preached that Christmas trees were idols and girls needed to wear dresses to church. At the same time, he touched and kissed me in sexual ways. When I realized that he was the reason that touch from my dad felt threatening to me, I had to mourn all those lost years when I could have felt safe in my dad’s hug or touch. I now feel grateful for God’s work of restoration and rescuing in my life despite the darkness that tried to bury me in fear and confusion. I still have so much to learn about accepting love from my Father.
My days are filled with … the voices of two special little people. I have a video clip on my iPhone that was taken by my daughter a few days ago. The video shows a side view of me with my head tilted down at a book and my long brown hair shielding my face. The sound track is her sweet little voice,
At this point I move for the first time to look up with a dazed smile on my face, “Hi, how are you?”
When she showed me this video, we laughed together. I couldn’t believe how profound it was to see me through her eyes.
I wish … I could say that was my first delayed response to my kids. But it wasn’t. It happens far too often. Sometimes it happens when I am *gasp* texting or looking at Facebook. This little video has made me so much more aware of what that looks like to my kids.
On a larger scale, I also wish that the demand for child and women sex slaves and pornography would stop. I want this generation of boys and young men to be different than so many of their fathers. I want this generation of girls and young women to know how beautiful they are and to know that beauty is so much more than skin and shape. I raise and educate (home school) my son and daughter with these hopes. I am so grateful for the honourable example of my husband, Robbie, and my dad, Fritz. These men infuse hope into my life for a world that has more justice, peace and love for women.
Today I give myself permission …
- to have moments where I feel like a terrible mom and know that He makes beautiful things out of the dust.
- to be 5’3” with funky glasses, long straight hair, ‘athletic’ build, A sometimes B cup breasts, little white bumps that keep popping up on my face including one that is right at the corner of my eye, dark moles all over my body, and fair skin and to feel beautiful, confident and loved.
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Would you like to add your story to Seeking Eve Monday?
We’d love to hear your story. Please share it by emailing Christina at seekingeve[@]gmail.com
To find words for your story, try following these lines, as Andrea did:
Faith to me means [community / hope / food / sacrifice / art / etc] …
What I mean by that is …
When I was little I …
My days are filled with …
I wish …
The thing is …
Today I give myself permission …
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About Christina:
Christina is a Toronto-based writer whose articles on culture, religion and technology have appeared in Vancouver, UPPERCASE and Geez magazine. She, her husband and two young children attend Grace Toronto Church. She is the founder of SeekingEve.ca and blogs at www.christinacrook.com.
“… there are hardworking, brave, crazy, passionate blood-women pulsing in that exposed heart of yours and you took in their guts and soul with your mother’s milk.”
It seems sometimes like you were born without a rib cage around your heart–you are so tender, so wide open, so innocent and welcoming that I can hardly bear it. You love so quickly and easily without thought of looks or creed, economics or appropriateness, borders or demarcations. Your default setting is trust, forgiveness offered before asked.
So, I want to be your rib cage, to protect your heart from bruises or breakage but the truth is that your heart is strong and wide for its very exposure. And you are so brave in your innocence, I learn from you. You made me a mother, small girl, and now my own ribs are cracked wide and through loving you, I am reacquainted with my own thumping too-tender self, and I am discovering a wide family of global sisterhood.
I claim my corner of your life and half of your blood, for the teaching of the big nouns and verbs of love and peace, justice and mercy, faith and laughter, servanthood and courage, along with the sacredness of work and beauty through the small daily life we live together now. There isn’t much drudgery in laundry and dishes anymore. I have found God in these small tasks because, together, we are learning. Nor do I find despair in working for freedom, equality, mercy and justice in our own family ways, because together we are learning hope and making space for God.
You see, you remind me a lot of myself. You may look like your Dad, but in your heart of hearts, you carry my temperament and personality. Sometimes that thrills me. Other times, it terrifies me. Because I simply want to tip over and pour everything of my own self out for you; I want you to know NOW what took me 33 years to learn about myself.
And knowing that you take after me in the good ways and in the let’s-be-honest-I’m-a-wreck-sometimes ways, I feel like I could write a book of rules and wisdom hard earned. Stupid things like, hey, don’t dye your hair black (trust me–it never washes out) and also, Charlie perfume makes a really poor cover-up for the smell of cigarette smoke. I know we’ll get to those ridiculous stories of my life, the ones that make you laugh at me. But I’ll also tell you my other stories about how I fell in love with your dad and what I think love looks like; how I love you and your brother and Evelynn, deep into my marrow, where my bones are alive.
I’ll trace the line of time backwards for you until you see the women that came before you in a great cloud of witnesses for your life. Not to burden you, small pixie, but to empower you.
After all, there are hardworking, brave, crazy, passionate blood-women pulsing in that exposed heart of yours and you took in their guts and soul with your mother’s milk.
We are thumping along with you, out here in the world now, reminding you that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. And you have a voice and a reason for being. You have a future and a hope. Know who you are, small girl, and when you forget, we’ll remind you. You are already a girl after God’s own heart, your ears are tuned to the Holy Spirit’s frequency and you comb the air like a spider. You’re paying attention.
How am I so blessed as to raise you up into womanhood? Your own story, yes, all yours, will be a beautiful thing to see unfold and I’m privileged for my front-row seat. You have helped me see every other mother in the world with walls-crumbling-down eyes. Every little girl could have your face, and now it’s not enough just to raise you well to a suburb with a mini-van to go to church on Sunday and pay your taxes. I am learning the counter-cultural in my own life and sowing it with prayer into yours. A life that tells a story of love, because every girl could be you, every mama could be me and every woman could be us, so we speak up, we pray, we sow our seed in hope and faith.
One morning, when you were four, we sat together and you asked me if I remembered when you were a baby and how we used to make each other laugh. I think you must have been looking at old pictures of that (but who knows? maybe you do remember?).
And I said, Yes, yes, I do remember.
And you said, We loved each other right from the start, didn’t we?
Yes, yes we did.
Love, Mummy
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Editor’s note: Sarah first wrote this post on International Women’s Day 2011. It gripped my heart then and has been one of my favourite pieces of Sarah’s ever since. This week, I made an exception with this post and asked Sarah if we could repost it from emergingmummy.com. I wanted our SheLoves readers to also have an opportunity to enter into this story, so it may be part of our collective memory as a sisterhood. –idelette xo
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About Sarah:
Sarah Styles Bessey lives in Abbotsford, BC with her husband and three tinies. She’s a happy clappy Jesus-lover, advocate for Mercy Ministries of Canada, blogger, writer and simple living/social justice wannabe. She blogs at www.emergingmummy.com and tweets from @sarahbessey.
On skytrain journalism, sanitary pads and the real face of dignity.
by Tina Francis | Twitter: @teenbug
_________________________________________________________________
I don’t typically brood over words like “dignity” while chomping on a piece of toast on a Thursday morning. I’m usually preoccupied with trying to make decisions like, “Can I get away with not washing my hair today?” or “How long can I sit on Facebook before I’m officially late for work?”
This week, however, was different. I came face-to-face with the stark reality that dignity is:
- A vague concept.
- A scarce commodity.
Allow me to illustrate my point by going over my week.
Monday: I spot this guy on the Skytrain. The repressed journalist in me just HAD to take a picture of his hoodie.
It’s a little hard to read in the picture because I was trying to be discreet. His hoodie says, “Chicks should come in six packs.” The infamous mudflap girl imprinted on each can. Pun intended.
The feminist in me was appalled. For the record: I’m not anti-men. I’m just pro-women.
“Was it just me, or was I being bullied, along with everyone else, into having to accept porn’s invasion into everyday life with its coarseness as the new norm?”- Lili Bee
Wednesday: I sat across from this guy…
“My parts are the best,” his T-shirt reads. TMI … but I’ll take your word for it kind sir. On closer inspection, it’s mudflap girl again! Only this time she’s on her knees. I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I’m guessing she’s not changing the tires.
How does a woman living in today’s world define “dignity” when the media tells us we are most appreciated on our knees, half-dressed, preferably in front of an automobile.
Don’t believe me? Take Beyonce’s music video “Run the World” for example. Ms. Knowles is singing about female empowerment on all fours in front of a car. Look at the similarities between the T-shirt and the video.
Car? Check. Mudflap girl? Check. Girl power? I don’t think so. Talk about sending mixed signals.
I really don’t want this to sound Anti-Beyonce because I love the girl. She can sing, dance and is a successful business woman. What’s not to love? It just bothers me that the music video for a song about girl power is communicating a conflicting message.
Why aren’t there more T-shirts emblazoned with the faces of Rosa Parks, Madeleine Albright and Margaret Atwood? I’d wear that!
Thursday: As you can imagine I was feeling pretty deflated by this point. The overly sexualized imagery and language surrounding my gender was depressing.
In an effort to cheer myself up I was browsing through the Living Hope website on my lunch break. Looking through the photos on the website, I saw a true picture of dignity. I saw women with deep-rooted self-worth, effortless grace, resourceful spirit, fervent courage and untainted joy.
This is the kind of “girl power” that appeals to me. I’m tired of the in-your-face, skin-baring, swearing-like-a-sailor, overly sexual, middle-finger showing, aggressive, violent, catty, condescending “girl power” the media advertises. It’s a cop-out. It’s counterfeit.
True girl power is someone who forgives the unforgivable, loves the unlovable and dares to show up for life even at the risk of getting hurt in the process.
“What should move us to action is human dignity: the inalienable dignity of the oppressed, but also the dignity of each of us. We lose dignity if we tolerate the intolerable.”- Dominique De Menil
The Intolerable: Abducted, gang-raped, infected with AIDS, left for dead, mutilated, forgotten, beaten, disfigured, shunned from society and sold as sex slaves.
“Restoring dignity” is the mandate of the
2. Making Honey
3. I was saving the best for last, a brilliant initiative called “MAKAPADS.”
According to UNICEF, approximately 1 in 10 African girls will skip school during menstruation because they fear being ridiculed or stigmatized. Rural schools don’t usually have proper toilet facilities or water and girls can’t afford sanitary pads. Often times they have to resort to unsanitary alternatives like leaves or cloth. This is the crucial juncture where many girls drop out of school.
The Living Hope ladies in Gulu have been part of an initiative that provides affordable sanitary pads, called Makapads made mainly of papyrus reeds and almost entirely of local materials. It is exciting because, not only is this a skills development opportunity, but the ladies also get to be a part of an initiative that is giving a new generation of girls the opportunity to remain in school.
The finished product is pretty impressive if you ask me!
“Our ladies are not a drama of victimization; they are a story of empowerment that transforms formerly abducted little girls into successful businesswomen.”- Marilyn Skinner, Founder of Watoto – Living Hope
Transforming abducted girls into successful business women?!
Hello? I love that.
“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
When I think of International Women’s Day, I am 26 again and a tourist, traveling on my own in New York City and waiting on the pier to go see Lady Liberty.
She beckoned me with her stance, carrying that Freedom torch, watching over a city and welcoming in strangers, immigrants. I was such an eager girl, aching to stretch her arms wide wide wide and find her place in the world.
Liberty stood, unmoving.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless. Tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” –Sonnet to the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty, by Emma Lazarus
On this day, International Women’s Day 2012, I want to stand, lift my lamp and point with all my might (however big or small) to the ideals of Freedom.
It’s no coincidence that International Women’s Day marks so many big moments in my story.
There was that International Women’s Day—16 years ago–when I met Dorothea who welcomed me into her world and pointed me to my own freedom. Under the loving—but o-so-never-mushy—arm of Dorothea, I began to live up to the woman I sensed in the seed.
Once I moved to Canada, there were the International Women’s Day events held by the Women’s Intercultural Network. Year after year, I loved moving in a sea of saris and chi paos and African beads and feeling so at home in this global picture.
Awakening
But, while I was awake to the beauty of the women in our world, I was not yet quite awake to the suffering of women in the world. Partnering with Gwen McVicker, my mom-in-law, and writing a prayer journal called, Discovering God’s Heart for Suffering Women, changed all that.
I wept deep into the night as I read the stories of women and children suffering at the hand of abuse and slavery and cultural practices like Female Genital Mutilation. We wrote prayers and stories and statistics–our early version of Half The Sky, I guess. We traveled with the journal to awaken others to the suffering around all of us. Not just out there—somewhere else in the world–but also right around us, in our own close circles. We encouraged others to look in and out, near and wide.
We knew this: If one in four women in our world has suffered some form of abuse—sexual abuse, rape, torture, economic, verbal, physical—it meant whenever four women gathered, at least one of us has suffered.
I woke up and began to take a stand. Whenever I could, wherever I could. I began to hold up a possibility for a world that looks different for women. (And men, therefore, too.) We spoke and prayed at MissionsFest in Vancouver, at churches in Burnaby and Hong Kong and, with 15,000 other women, at the Global Celebration for Women in Houston, Texas, one week after 911.
The world began to wake up, not because we were raising our voices necessarily, but because we became part of a larger awakening.
Solidarity: Congo and Uganda
Then there was the International Women’s Day, six years ago, when I held a solidarity evening in my home. On this day, I was painfully aware of the suffering of our sisters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Northern Uganda.
We were a small circle that night. Let’s just say, Standing with suffering was not a popular party yet.
We read the stories of women who had been raped and diminished by rebel forces in the Congo and Northern Uganda. The air was thick and heavy with these women’s stories of suffering.
We read stories, like that of Antoinette M’Cubira:
When rebels started tearing off her clothes, Antoinette pleaded with them not to rape or kill her. “Even if I killed you, what would it matter?” one of the rebels said. “You are not human. You are like an animal. Even if I kill you, it is not as if you would be missed. You Congolese are many.”
We read Antoinette’s story and the stories of many others and held them in the Light. We responded by lighting a candle on their behalf. This simple act was our humble offering of hope for more Light and less hate, violence and violation of women.
“I find it ironic,” said my friend Ellie, “ that these men regarded her as worthless, and yet, here we are in Canada, telling Antoinette’s story and honouring her.”
We couldn’t help but see it. Our simple gathering stood in the opposite spirit: honouring, not diminishing.
“I light this candle for courage,” said Joan.
We nodded. God knows, we can all use some.
“I light this candle for Faruha’s seven children,” said Diane, a mother of two girls.
“This one is for the victims of rape,” I offered, choking away the emotion.
As we shared story after story and shared our hearts, we felt compassion, anger, love, kinship. We noticed how our stories were connected to our sisters. We shared many of the same hopes and dreams: of a good life for our children, an education and a way to make a difference in the world.
That night, as we parted ways, we gathered stones and placed them in a basket. Then, one by one, we carried the stories of our African sisters home.
Petition
That was six years ago. I was reminded of that evening of solidarity when just two days ago, in the swell of awareness rising around Kony 2012, I leaped and started a petition to demand that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper act to stop Joseph Kony’s rule of terror. I didn’t know if 100 friends would sign it. Last time I checked, we had over 3,600 signatures. (If you haven’t yet, please sign here.)
It means that on this International Women’s Day in 2012, I still stand in the place of hope for Freedom. Our world is changing and shifting–many are awake and mobilizing. But we need more people to wake up and we need to be savvy about HOW we act. I still want to raise my torch (no matter how small) to point to freedom and the possibility of a different world for women. For humanity.
About Kony 2012
I am saddened–and a bit ticked off, really–by the backlash against Invisible Children and the Kony 2012 campaign. There are elements of the campaign I don’t stand with–the very North American idea of “making Kony famous,” for example. (You can also IC’s official response to the criticism here.) Obviously I believe non-profits have to be accountable, but: For me, this action has never been about Invisible Children. That would be missing the point.
If Kony 2o12 becomes about Invisible Children—the non-profit organization–we have taken our eyes off the real issue: the suffering of women, children and communities in Uganda, the DRC and Sudan.
If we get distracted by this, then, again, we would be guilty of watching police cars chase O.J. Simpson down a California highway, while the nation of Rwanda suffers a genocide.
Distraction diffuses our power.
And, if we have some power–a voice, a name, an education–we have a responsibility.
On this International Women’s Day, I want to keep my eyes on the suffering in the world. I want to stand in solidarity with my sisters—around the world—who are suffering, have suffered, and live courageously into a new future.
On this International Women’s Day, I want to listen for the messages of suffering–see the people–and not be distracted by messengers.
It’s simple: We are called to stand with the suffering. Not rescue, not save, but do our darndest to stand with.
And that’s where I stand.
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Please sign the petition:
If you haven’t yet, please sign the petition, demanding action on the part of the Canadian government. Or start your own petition, demanding action from your own government. Please also write a letter to Canadian PM Stephen Harper, asking him to act on behalf of the people of Uganda. There’s a sample letter on the change.org site, but please make your letter personal, so our representatives will take notice.
If you havent’ seen the video we’re talking about, here it is:
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My dear SheLoves sisters, I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments:
Where do you stand on this International Women’s Day? Or where do you want to stand?
What are your thoughts on the criticism against Invisible Children and this campaign?
What do you want to raise your voice to? What issue has your face?
How will you celebrate today?
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About Idelette: I like soggy cereal and I would like to go to every spot on the map of the earth to meet our world’s women.
I dream of a world where no women or girls are for sale. I dream of a world where women and men are partners in doing the work that brings down a new Heaven on earth.
My word for the year is “Roar,” but I have learned it’s not about my voice rising as much as it is about our collective voices rising in unison to bring down walls of injustice.
I have three children and this place–right here, called shelovesmagazine.com–is my fourth baby. I am African, although my skin colour doesn’t tell you that story. I am also a little bit Chinese, because my heart lives there amongst the tall skyscrapers of Taipei and the mountains of Chiufen. Give me sweet chai and I think I’m in heaven. I live in Vancouver, Canada and I pledged my heart to Scott 11 years ago.
I believe in kindness and calling out the song in each other’s hearts. I also believe that Love covers–my gaps, my mistakes and the distances between us. I blog at idelette.com and tweet@idelette.
On Angelina Jolie’s leg, posing for Facebook pictures and exposing the “real me.”
by Tina Francis | Twitter: @teenbug
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It’s been an AWESOME week to be a woman.
Apart from the insane media coverage of Angelina Jolie’s leg at the Oscars (epic low for humanity), I have enjoyed watching women stand up and stick it to The Man.
I say this sincerely and un-ironically: it must suck to wake up every morning and hear that your leg is on the cover of yet another newspaper, when women are being raped in Congo.
Ignore these bozos. Let one of them win an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and be named Hollywood’s highest-paid actress by Forbes; then they can talk.
The last link is a revealing ballsy piece, written by our very own SheLoves writer, Claire De Boer.
Here’s an excerpt from her article that made me choke on my afternoon apple:
“I can’t count the number of times I have sat around a table with girlfriends, a delicious selection of mouthwatering finger foods under our noses, and listened as most of us have justified our decision to eat or not eat the food.
I went for a run today. I didn’t eat dinner, so I can indulge. I’ve been good all week, so I deserve a night off. I shouldn’t … I really need to lose a few pounds.
Whatever the response, so many of us are sitting around that table justifying our decision to eat or not eat. I have never heard the same conversation around a table of men.”
Mid February (coincidentally on my birthday), another SheLoves writer, powerhouse Sarah Bessey wrote, “For Shame or Freedom?” “Shame is insidious, ” she says, “because it can sound reasonable to our own ears, but it always ends in the same place: a prison.”
She goes on to say that as women:
“…we weave a banner of love as nouns and verbs to guard and protect, to trail-blaze, for our mothers, our daughters:
you are beautiful, you have worth, you are valuable – NOW.
I love you, I see you, I hear you, my sister.
Facebook Me vs. Real Me
Sarah’s words, “I see you,” jumped out at me. I thought about how rarely, I let people see the real me. I hate being seen. I hate been photographed. Maybe I’m extra critical because I’m a photographer. If it’s not the right angle, the right light and the right posture, I want the earth to open up and swallow me whole.
This fear is magnified with the magic of Facebook. Anyone can upload and tag a nasty picture of me with a double-chin, back-fat, eyes closed and mouth wide open. Sure, I could “untag” myself from the picture, but I’ll always know that it’s still floating out there on the scary Internet.
Like most mortals, I’m guilty of putting up a cute but not too pose-y picture of myself as a profile picture, like so:
Please note, the flattering soft light coming from my window making me look like a cast member of “Touched by an Angel.” Truth be told, I often worry that people who I “meet” on the internet, will be disappointed when they meet me in person. Alas, I can’t bottle that gorgeous light to follow me around!
And hey, if this is what Supermodel Kate Moss looks like without makeup and Photoshop, then why do I give myself such a hard time?
If more of us women stopped hiding behind our staged “Perfect Profile Picture,” we could start to reverse the cycle of self-hate and fear, and run wildly into the arms of love and freedom.
Some of you might remember that my One Word for 2012 is “enough.” I’m learning that I am: strong enough, smart enough, brave enough, loved enough …[squirm] … even beautiful enough. Just as I am.
“We can’t look to the world to restore our worth; we’re here to restore our worth to the world. The world outside us can reflect our glory, but it cannot create it. It cannot crown us. Only God can crown us, and he already has.” — Marianne Williamson
In a moment of pure insanity I thought, if my beautiful friend Claire can be honest about how many times she has weighed herself, I can be honest about what I look like without makeup.
So this is the real me …
Glasses
Pimple on my cheek
Angry Vein on my forehead
Bags under my eyes
Ratty pajamas
No makeup.
No Photoshop.
No flattering angle.
BOOM.
Pssst … if you click on the picture, it gets even larger.
And this is (round-faced) me, after I realized that this idea was totally crazy and I was going to regret it in the morning!
Guess what? It’s morning. And, I don’t regret it!
“A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone. It doesn’t struggle to be different than a rose. It doesn’t have to. It is different. And there’s room in the garden for every flower. You didn’t have to struggle to make your face different than anyone else’s on earth. It just is. You are unique because you were created that way.” — Marianne Williamson
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OH-OH-OH, I have a crazy idea!!!
Dear ones, I (lovingly) dare you to take a picture of yourself without makeup and:
a. Post it on our SheLoves Facebook page.
b. Share it on Twitter. You can copy/paste this tweet:
“Hey World! It’s Me, _____[insert name]. Without Makeup. #iamenough [insert picture] ”
c. Or “Pin it” on Pinterest. #iamenough
Gleep! I’m so excited. I would seriously love to see your beautiful faces, just as you are.
Together we can define a new standard for beauty; one that celebrates our curves, stretchmarks, scary veins, wrinkles and laugh lines.
Words are my chocolate. Music, my caramel. Photography, my bread. Girlfriends, my butter.
Confession: Some girls dream about Manolo Blahniks or their next Hermes bag. Not me. I dream of freshly baked bread, perfectly barbecued meat & steaming bowls of Pho. My dream lover *cue Mariah Carey song* is someone who would read out a menu to me in Barry White’s baritone voice.
I celebrate food, ask for help, interrupt conversations, laugh and cry hard, acknowledge the elephant in most rooms, fight for the underdog and believe in the power of storytelling.
My word for the year is “leap.” If something scares me, I do it.
I was born and raised in Dubai and currently live in the beautiful city of Vancouver, known for some of the best sushi in the world.
“It’s not okay that women live bound by the chains of what society expects from our bodies.”
42,720. The approximate number of times I have weighed myself in my life.
68,352. The approximate number of minutes I have spent counting calories.
That’s 1140 hours—47.5 days— of non-stop calorie counting and more than two weeks of standing on the scale day and night.
Those are some big numbers.It’s hard for me to share them with you.I am embarrassed to have wasted so much of my time on such a fruitless pursuit.
But I need to talk about this subject, because as women we so often refer to this unnatural relationship with our bodies as though it’s normal. To me, it’s a form of an eating disorder. Not in the same way that anorexia or bulimia are eating disorders, but in the sense that so many women like myself grapple with this “disordered” way of eating on a daily basis. I’m talking about it because it’s not okay that women live bound by the chains of what society expects from our bodies.
I can’t count the number of times I have sat around a table with girlfriends, a delicious selection of mouthwatering finger foods under our noses, and listened as most of us have justified our decision to eat or not eat the food.
“I went for a run today.”
“I didn’t eat dinner, so I can indulge.”
“I’ve been good all week, so I deserve a night off.”
“I shouldn’t … I really need to lose a few pounds.”
Whatever the response, so many of us are sitting around that table justifying our decision to eat or not eat. I have never heard the same conversation around a table of men.
The journey
I have been dieting since the age of 12. I remember the day I went to my mother and told her I thought I was fat. She thought she was helping me when she put me on a calorie-controlled diet.
I can’t remember if I actually lost any weight on that first diet, but I do remember learning a lot about the energy values of basic food items, and experiencing the joy of watching the scale move in a downward direction. It was addictive. If I lost any weight then, it didn’t matter—I had begun the agonizing journey of feast or famine.
I am now 38. I would estimate that I have begun a diet at least six times a year since that first time. This means I’ve been on a diet over 156 times. I’ve probably lost three times my current body weight in my lifetime, yet I’ve never been more than 20 pounds overweight. I’ve been losing and gaining the same weight over and over again all this time.
What a waste of time and energy.
Out of balance
And somehow I seem unable to break the cycle—after all, I have lived with it for 26 years. When it began, it was about the extra pounds; I used food to get through my parents’ destructive divorce. Food became something I relied on for comfort. Then it became an obsession, a way of controlling my life. Now it’s a state of mind that is so deeply ingrained, I struggle with it every day.
It’s also about control. Letting go means losing control. When I have control over my food intake, I somehow have control over my life. Perhaps that’s why this battle with my body has gone on for so long.
Where do I go from here?
This is not what I want for my future.
This is not what I want for my daughter’s future.
The thought that I may pass on such a negative cycle to my daughter scares me. I try to teach her about making healthy choices, to focus on how beautiful she is from the inside out. I want to protect her from a world that objectifies women and expects us to look a certain way. I know the best I can do is to let her know she is worth so much more.
And I have to let go, both for her sake and for mine. I want to walk the path that God purposed for my life without being held back by the chains of a negative body image. One day I will stand before my Father and he will ask me to account for my life. I don’t want to tell Him I spent every day obsessing about my calorie intake.
I want to tell Him that I loved well and that I made a difference in the lives of others.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” Matthew 6:25
By faith and through prayer, I am standing for a future where my relationship with food and with my body is the one that God intended for me.
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Dear SheLoves friends, I’d love to hear your thoughts:
Do you struggle with the same issue?
Do you think it’s becoming easier or harder for us as women to be happy with their bodies?
What holds you back from stepping into your true light?
What has helped you in finding your balance?
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Born and raised in the UK, Claire De Boer is a writer, woman of God, mother and wife. She is currently working on her first women’s fiction novel and a collection of short stories. Claire is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University. She blogs at clairejdeboer and tweets @britchic19.
As a kid, I was told the real power of the crucifixion of Christ was not that it happened, but that there were people to bear witness to the act. People saw and were able to deliver first-hand their testimony.
Desiree is a consultant, strategist, coach, speaker, storyteller and explorer. She uses her superpowers–her voice, sense of adventure and belief in the transformative power of community–to help organizations design programs that create unrestricted revenue, volunteers and advocates.
