Teach Them To Be Powerful! Pt. 1

Since coming out of my Feminist closet, I have struggled with women I once admired. For awhile, I felt that I had nothing in common with women in leadership positions in the LDS church. Julie B. Beck broke my heart a few times but there is a quote I won't ever forget:

"There is eternal influence and power in motherhood."

Sister Julie, we can agree on this! Motherhood. The one thing that keeps me grounded, humble, and reminds me every day that life is more than focusing on myself. Yet, motherhood is what sparked my feminist streak. Why? I want to raise a son who respects women, a kind man. You know those are really hard to find right? Well- it's time we empowered our sons and our daughters! If we teach one but not the other, we will fail miserably in this unequal world.

"A woman should be two things, who and what she wants." 

(feminist quote I love)

There is this belief that you have to choose just one side. I have disagreed and  met disgruntled looks from feminists who look down on me for choosing to birth a child and raise him on my own. I have had conservative mothers pity my lifestyle because I worked straight out of college and had a small son. Both of them were met by my wrath because we should be supporting each other. We are powerful human beings with control of our lives and our bodies. Our bodies are incredible vessels that have the sacred power to carry and birth children.

So where do we go from here? What happens now? We can all agree that we're pretty awesome at some very cool things. We raise our daughters differently. We empower them. Not only do we say you can be an astronaut or an engineer  but we also provide the support behind that. We encourage them when life is hard. When life is throwing all sorts of crazy options their way, we provide ideas and support. When my (future) daughter calls me and says she's always wanted to be an accountant but elementary education is way easier and everyone else is doing it, I will reach through the phone and remind her that she is good at numbers for a reason (no offense to any of my teaching friends, happy to have you here!). By allowing our daughters to take the roads we took, they may be happy. They may have the life we have and for some, that is more than okay. My personal kin will know my personal story. I hope they will learn from my mistakes. I hope they will be stronger and less crowd pleasing. I hope they will be able to look at me and say with pride that they understand the strength of their soul and the power of their womanhood. 

I am tired you guys. My heart hurts. Every day, I hear of a new tragedy in our women circles. We need to teach our daughters. We can't leave it all to the men (and let me just say that I am VERY pro men and I love them) because they don't always understand. We need to educate our men too... But for now, my focus is on what WE can do. How can we teach them? How can we show these valuable young women that they are truly worth so much more than they think of themselves? I want to teach them with Love. I want them to Own their bodies and not value their worth on their clothes, their cars, or the hottness of their boyfriends. Let's not lose any more. Let's fight for what we didn't have and let's give them a much better future. 

Who runs the world????