The Grandest of Gaucheries
"I didn't want to be a boy, ever, but I was outraged that his height and intelligence were graces for him and gaucheries for me." -Jane Rule
I believe we need more love in the world. We need the courage to live and love wholeheartedly, to be vulnerable and out there, with the belief that those we love will see our beauty and worth and give us the love we deserve. This blog is part of my attempt to live fully, to love generously and courageously.
May this serve as a refuge for anyone else out there feeling like an alien in a foreign land.
“When I was a student at Cambridge I remember an anthropology professor holding up a picture of a bone with 28 incisions carved in it. ‘This is often considered to be man’s first attempt at a calendar,’ she explained. She paused as we dutifully wrote this down. ‘My question to you is this–what man needs to mark 28 days? I would suggest to you that this is woman’s first attempt at a calendar.’ It was a moment that changed my life. In that second I stopped to question almost everything I had been taught about the past. How often had I overlooked women’s contributions?”
“Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, ‘She doesn’t have what it takes.’ They will say, ‘Women don’t have what it takes.’”
— Clare Boothe Luce in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. (via thatswhatshesaidquotes)
I could fill endless pages with my thoughts on Valentine’s Day. Commodification of love, privileging of certain types of love, commercialized heteronormativity, etc. But that’s easy. And time consuming. This just makes me giggle and giggle. And that’s how my Valentine’s Day should be.
“Feminism has fought no wars. It has killed no opponents. It has set up no concentration camps, starved no enemies, practiced no cruelties. Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions.. for safety on the streets… for child care, for social welfare…for rape crisis centers, women’s refuges, reforms in the law. If someone says ‘Oh, I’m not a feminist,’ I ask ‘Why? What’s your problem?’”
