In Praise of Difficult Women
It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us. - Jane Goodall
Coming up on September 17, I am hosting what I call a Mindful Community Conversation (MCC) in Missoula, centered on the topic: In Praise of Difficult Women, which I borrowed from a book by the same name by Karen Karbo. I’ve been organizing these MCC’s for a number of years and each one focuses on a different topic.
Ever since reading Karen Karbo’s book, I’ve taken to affectionately calling myself a difficult woman. Prior to reading the book, I knew that certain people sometimes regarded me as a difficult woman (mostly men in places of authority & power), but certainly not in a good way. But now I see this label as an honorific title. A title I have a healthy sense of pride in.
From the introduction of Karen Karbo’s book:
“A difficult woman, as I define her, is a person who believes her needs, passions, and goals are at least as important as those of everyone around her… A difficult woman is also a woman who doesn’t believe the expectations of the culture in which she lives are more important than what she knows to be true about herself. She is a woman who accepts that sometimes the cost of being fully human is upsetting people.”
If you’re a woman in this world and you speak up about something no one wants to hear or be confronted with, you’re a difficult woman. If you think your voice matters, you’re a difficult woman. If you want to be treated with respect, you’re a difficult woman. If you have views that aren’t in line with the status quo, you’re a difficult woman. As Jane Goodall said, it really doesn’t take much. My most recent personal practice blog post: On Speaking Up
Sometimes I get the sense that in our collective culture here in the U.S we think we’re all set and good to go when it comes to how girls & women are seen, treated & regarded, especially by boys & men. But while yes we’ve come a long way in the elevation and inclusion and respect of girls & women, we still have such a very long way still to go.
Yesterday I recorded this video and I posted it on our EM YouTube channel this morning. As I am interested in advocating for the voices of women, for the act of speaking up and speaking out, and I also think it’s critically important we all learn more about the history of patriarchy and how it continues fiercely to this day (which negatively impacts all of us regardless of our gender), I’d like to encourage you to please watch it (it mostly involves me reading from the chapter “A Brief History of the Patriarchy” from the book On Our Best Behavior: The Price Women Pay to Be Good by Elise Loehnen):