Sublime

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man.

Women held the community together. “Wathint’Abafazi Wathint’imbokodo!” was the chant they would rally to during the freedom struggle. “When you strike a woman, you strike a rock.” As a nation, we recognized the power of women, but in the home they were expected to submit and obey.

The naive or injured woman is then too easily lured with promises of ease, of lilting enjoyment, of various pleasures, be they promises of elevated status in the eyes of her family, her peers, or promises of increased security, eternal love, high adventure, or hot sex.

solidity of those women

anathema

Though her soul requires seeing, the culture around her requires sightlessness. Though her soul wishes to speak its truth, she is pressured to be silent. Neither

In terms of the wildish nature of women, it is this normalization of violence, and what scientists subsequently termed “learned helplessness,” that influences women to not only stay with drunken mates, abusive employers, and groups that exploit and harass them but causes them to feel unable to rise up to support the things they believe in with all

All of us, women and men, must do better.