"Wonder Woman"

I want to talk about women. Not, this time, about human rights, misogyny, politics, or reproductive rights, as often times (as many of you know) I like to go on very passionately about. But while I proudly maintain my unequivocal desire to smash the patriarchy, right now I want to talk about women in a different context; a different level that is (like many important things that women do) largely overlooked, because women amaze me. Not just those women whose voices have been picked up—often begrudgingly—by the media/history books/general public. Not just those names that many of us now know. I want to talk about the women I know because every day they amaze me more than any celebrity, superhero storyline or epic trilogy plot. They are the heroines of life who often go unacknowledged because their acts of selflessness and bravery become so commonplace that it can be easy to grow accustomed to them, and forget that they are extraordinary.

            When I think about the life I’ve put together, a year and a half after my world disintegrated, the hands that picked up the pieces, dusted them off and handed them back to me were those of sisters and mothers. These women who have come into my life at various stages of my own womanhood, have slowly shaped and worked those pieces to fill many of those gaps—those holes that left me exposed and vulnerable and sick to my stomach. Like stitches, they’ve sewn up my wounds and, when I lament over the unsightliness of my scars they remind me that they’re battle scars and a sign of strength rather than of weakness. My “baggage,” they remind me, is not too heavy—I’ve got enough muscle to carry it on my own. I don’t need to find someone who is willing to hold it for me.

            Most of us I would hope are familiar with, and equally frustrated by, the ways in which women are portrayed in popular media. Thrown into boxes with stereotypical labels we are usually never truly dynamic, 3 dimensional characters, and all too often we’re cast as shallow, competitive, or ruthless, in need of those much more level headed men to step in and “adult” for us. These are NOT the women I know. I doubt they are women who anyone really knows. My women are pillars of strength, who hold up those around them—children, spouses, parents, friends, siblings. They work their fingers to the bone and still find energy to laugh, love, and lend constant, quiet encouragement to one another. And when one of us is kneeling beneath the weight of life’s hardships my women devote what little spare energy they have to pick at that burden, as though removing stones from a cave-in, piece by piece until they can help her stand back up.  Where are these women on TV? We don’t see them there. But we see them every day.

            A very good friend, more than once, has shared with me some words of wisdom from her grandmother: “Make sure you have a solid circle of girlfriends, because your husbands usually die first and so it’s your girlfriends who you’re going to grow old with.” This always makes me laugh because it’s awful but also probably true, and I am already living proof. I count myself infinitely fortunate to be surrounded by my warrior women. And what I’ve come to realize is that, unlike the “strong women” characters we usually get on screen, strong women in real life are not superheroes. We have no extraordinary powers that prompt us to step up to save lives. What is more extraordinary, in my opinion, is that the women I know are limited, constricted by many things—time, finances, responsibilities, distance, and more. They’re not wiping up kitchen spills with a smile (who the fuck is happy about cleaning with goddamn paper towels?) But they assemble their limited resources and give anything they have left to you, when you need, when you’re running on empty and have miles to go. “She would give you the shirt off her back, and then be cold,” is a more than accurate description of any of them. These are the remarkable women who no one talks about; who all too often go unrecognized. And in the whirlwind of life, in a shit show of a week filled with migraines, sick kids, and snowstorms, they’ll offer to pick up my prescription across town at 9pm, in -30 degrees Celsius, when I’m curled up in the fetal position on my couch with a pounding head. They are my wonder women.