A Woman's Creed
One of the speakers who came during our pre-service training passed this out as part of her presentation. At the time it only resonated distantly with me but being here for a few months "in the trenches" with women in the developing world has made this hit close to home for me. It's not just lyrical imagery, it's reality for women all over Kenya, Africa and the world.
Written by Robin Morgan, in collaboration with Perdita Huston, Sunetra Puri, Mahnaz Afkhami, Diane Faulkner, Corringe Kumar, Simla Wali and Paola Melchiori at the 1994 WEDO Global Strategies Meeting.
We are female human beings poised on the edge of the new millennium. We are the majority of our species, yet we have dwelt in the shadows. We are the invisible, the illiterate, the laborers, the refugees, the poor.
And we vow: NO MORE
We are the women who hunger - for rice, home, freedom, each other, ourselves.
We are the women who thirst - for clean water and laughter, literacy, love.
We have existed at all times, in every society. We have survived femicide. We have rebelled - and left clues.
We are continuity, weaving future from past, logic with lyric.
We are women who stand in our sense and shout YES.
We are women who wear broken bones, voices, minds, hearts - but we are women who dare whisper NO.
We are women whose souls no fundamentalist cage can contain.
We are women who refuse to permit the sowing of death in our gardens, air, rivers, seas.
We are each precious, unique, necessary. We are strengthened and blessed and relieved at not having to be all the same. We are the daughters of longing. We are the mothers in labor to birth the politics of the 21st century.
We are the women men warned us about.
We are the women who know that all issues are ours, who will reclaim our wisdom, reinvent our tomorrow, question and redefine everything, including power.
We have worked now for decades to name the details of our need, rage, hope,vision. We have broken our silence, exhausted our patience. we are weary of listing on our suffering - to entertain or be simply ignored. We are done with vague words and real waiting; famishing for action, dignity, joy. We intend to do more than merely endure and survive.
They have tried to deny us, define us, denounce us; to jail, enslave, exile, gas, rape, beat, burn, bury - and bore us. Yet nothing, not even the offer to save their failed system, can grasp us.
For thousands of years, women have had responsibility without power - while men have had power without responsibility. We offer those men who risk being brothers a balance, a future, a hand. But with or without them, we will go on.
For we are the Old Ones, The New Breed, the Natives who came first but lasted, indigenous to an utterly different dimension. We are the girlchild in Zambia, the grandmother in Burma, the woman in El Salvador and Afghanistan, Finland and Fiji. We are whale-song and rainforest; the depth-wave rising huge to shatter the glass power on the shore; the lost and despised who, weeping, stagger into the light.
All this we are. We are intensity, energy, the people speaking - who no longer will wait and who cannot be stopped.
We are poised on the edge of the millennium - ruin behind us, no map before us, the taste of fear sharp on our tongues.
Yet we will leap.
The exercise of imagining is an act of creation.
The act of creation is an exercise of will.
All this is political. And possible.
Bread. A Clean Sky. Active peace. A woman's voice singing somewhere, melody drifting like smoke from the cookfires. The army disbanded, the harvest abundant. The wound healed, the child wanted, the prisoner freed, the body's integrity honored, the lover returned. The magical skill that reads marks into meaning. The labor equal, fair, and valued. Delight in the challenge for consensus to solve problems. No hand raised in any gesture but greeting. Secure interiors - of heart, home, land, - so firm as to make secure borders irrelevant at last. And everywhere laughter, care, celebration, dancing, contentment. A humble, early paradise, in the now.
We will make it real, make it our own, make policy, history, peace, make it available, make mischief, a difference, love, the connection, the miracle, ready.
Believe it.
We are the women who will transform the world.
Written by Robin Morgan, in collaboration with Perdita Huston, Sunetra Puri, Mahnaz Afkhami, Diane Faulkner, Corringe Kumar, Simla Wali and Paola Melchiori at the 1994 WEDO Global Strategies Meeting.
We are female human beings poised on the edge of the new millennium. We are the majority of our species, yet we have dwelt in the shadows. We are the invisible, the illiterate, the laborers, the refugees, the poor.
And we vow: NO MORE
We are the women who hunger - for rice, home, freedom, each other, ourselves.
We are the women who thirst - for clean water and laughter, literacy, love.
We have existed at all times, in every society. We have survived femicide. We have rebelled - and left clues.
We are continuity, weaving future from past, logic with lyric.
We are women who stand in our sense and shout YES.
We are women who wear broken bones, voices, minds, hearts - but we are women who dare whisper NO.
We are women whose souls no fundamentalist cage can contain.
We are women who refuse to permit the sowing of death in our gardens, air, rivers, seas.
We are each precious, unique, necessary. We are strengthened and blessed and relieved at not having to be all the same. We are the daughters of longing. We are the mothers in labor to birth the politics of the 21st century.
We are the women men warned us about.
We are the women who know that all issues are ours, who will reclaim our wisdom, reinvent our tomorrow, question and redefine everything, including power.
We have worked now for decades to name the details of our need, rage, hope,vision. We have broken our silence, exhausted our patience. we are weary of listing on our suffering - to entertain or be simply ignored. We are done with vague words and real waiting; famishing for action, dignity, joy. We intend to do more than merely endure and survive.
They have tried to deny us, define us, denounce us; to jail, enslave, exile, gas, rape, beat, burn, bury - and bore us. Yet nothing, not even the offer to save their failed system, can grasp us.
For thousands of years, women have had responsibility without power - while men have had power without responsibility. We offer those men who risk being brothers a balance, a future, a hand. But with or without them, we will go on.
For we are the Old Ones, The New Breed, the Natives who came first but lasted, indigenous to an utterly different dimension. We are the girlchild in Zambia, the grandmother in Burma, the woman in El Salvador and Afghanistan, Finland and Fiji. We are whale-song and rainforest; the depth-wave rising huge to shatter the glass power on the shore; the lost and despised who, weeping, stagger into the light.
All this we are. We are intensity, energy, the people speaking - who no longer will wait and who cannot be stopped.
We are poised on the edge of the millennium - ruin behind us, no map before us, the taste of fear sharp on our tongues.
Yet we will leap.
The exercise of imagining is an act of creation.
The act of creation is an exercise of will.
All this is political. And possible.
Bread. A Clean Sky. Active peace. A woman's voice singing somewhere, melody drifting like smoke from the cookfires. The army disbanded, the harvest abundant. The wound healed, the child wanted, the prisoner freed, the body's integrity honored, the lover returned. The magical skill that reads marks into meaning. The labor equal, fair, and valued. Delight in the challenge for consensus to solve problems. No hand raised in any gesture but greeting. Secure interiors - of heart, home, land, - so firm as to make secure borders irrelevant at last. And everywhere laughter, care, celebration, dancing, contentment. A humble, early paradise, in the now.
We will make it real, make it our own, make policy, history, peace, make it available, make mischief, a difference, love, the connection, the miracle, ready.
Believe it.
We are the women who will transform the world.
posted by Justina at 3:28 PM
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