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The Women Speak

“OK then”, she began, “I have the right to express what I feel without worrying myself sick of what the response will be from others, taping my mouth with sticky tape, even before my words may flutter out of my throat, the place where all my truth is held. It is in this quiet strangling that I have slowly died and learned to live as a ghost under the shadow of my oppressor – He calls himself, “What Others Will Say”. For centuries he has shielded me with the promise of security, as he fattens his ego with my insecurities. I have learned to love him for the only part he still hasn’t accessed in me is the one that lies hidden in the roots of my heart, invisible to the sight of others; the compassion and understanding that I carry – the one that still allows me to birth little girls who I know will be doomed to live under the same fate until God decides to make it different again. I know it’s warrioresses we’re birthing, who are the only hope for a change to come, however long it may take. We are not victims of our oppressors, even though that’s what some of our modern, angry women may christen us with. We are the models of patience – even though our puzzled smiles reveal our confusion. We may seem to be lost but we follow our intuitions and as crazy as they may seem, we know that the day is to come.”

“And I also have the right to write”, she declared, ”of the injustices that we have suffered, for it’s only through those experiences that we will be able to make the change. And they need to be recorded for our daughters to come, so they may not despise us or dishonor us with a sneer. It’s when they read about how our bodies were treated, how our throats were choked, how our lives were submitted to the control of our shadow that we’ll awaken the same seed of love and compassion laying dormant in their lives. It’s our stories that will water that seed. We are just the fertile soil – so many deaths forming this compost for our sacredness to glow into the true Goddess in all her colors and freedom. Her freedom to finally express herself as a woman within her own rights of expression. It will be She who will speak for us. It’s for her that we’ve so diligently been working for. Our lives take on a new meaning as we envision and believe in her birth. My oppressor can only silence me for now. He may think I am ignorant, but I truly know.”

“And if I choose, I can create a rite”, she recalls now that She has birthed. She speaks to all these women who have fertilized the whole self that she is. “I will create a rite that will honor these empresses disguised once in the clothes of whores, the ragged dolls, mannequin wives, silent saintresses, floor scrubbers, ghost writers and eternal mothers. This rite is not one to announce to the oppressor and whiplash him with, now that I can speak. For it is not his power that I want to imitate, but it is their power I want to conserve. My rite honors their rituals, sings their songs, embraces their vulnerability and gives voice to my throat. The voice comes from that hidden part in my heart and gets to say what they’ve always wanted to express:

“We are here and we’re beautiful as we are. Would you allow me to share this beauty with you for it’s ripe to be revealed and lies waiting for you?”