Becoming Me - My response to "Girls don't cut grass"

When I was given the link to World Pulse, my life leapt forward. It was such a magical dream come true that we can all be in touch like this, that now we have this global home together.

We are asked to describe an experience that marks us, the knowledge that we are heading into more, a conversation, a challenge, a discovery, a shift in our path. A change in how we see the world, how we understand ourselves more deeply.

A moment that changed me, an experience that marked me was looking deeply into my mother’s eyes as she explained to me that she was carrying a dead baby and that the hospitals would not allow her to have an abortion until three male doctors agreed. She could have died.

A conversation, a challenge, a discovery, a shift in our path. A change in how we see the world, in how we understand ourselves more deeply while knowing that by speaking openly about change needed for women and girls that we would be labelled radical, not to be trusted. I knew that I was not alone in realizing my purpose in being here, that my purpose in being a woman on this earth at this time was to end violence against women and girls and to create the world of peace and respect that we know is possible.

A Turn in my Journey as Activist.

I grew into this movement learning through our herstorians, determined to keep known stories from our past, protecting our information and communication with each other, travelling to find other women equally determined to focus on ending all forms of violence toward women and girls, discovering the generations before us, recognizing the intentional hiding of women’s work throughout time and the swift denigration and punishment aimed at those of us speaking out. “Too radical”.

A group of 13 of us opened one of the first Women’s Centres in Canada. I read about the burning and torture of women as witches in Europe, my ancestresses. Magazines and newsletters kept us in touch with each other across Canada, the USA and parts of Europe. We hoped for the women in countries we had no ways of reaching. We made our work known despite the threats of being discounted as “too radical”, “selfish”, “too woman centred”, “man-haters”, by political leaders who continue to speak out against women intentionally holding and offering circles together.

I have taken part in and offered these circles to women and girls since the 1960’s. I was able to offer groups for young and teenaged girls who needed to heal from incest and rape, some through government services, some through the web of women’s centres that had opened across Canada. The resistance to these meetings continues to be fierce. We are warned that we are to be punished and closed down if we offer these circles as female only. This is nothing new. Why would I punish myself for what I do, when I know how much healing is possible within these rare moments of safety? The many and varied forms of suppression of women and the pathways to escape violence are what we know and make available through the stories we are able to share together.

Being in the rare position of having been free to choose my life course, I had recurring dreams in my early 20’s telling me that it was not my path to marry or have children, no matter how good the man, no matter how I love children. I wanted to create change in how women and girls are treated, dedicated to end war and all forms of violence, dedicated to protecting our planet. I found my way into a circle of women and into lesbian feminist culture by my early ’20’s. I fell deeply in love with a woman. I found my way to a dedicated wider circle of women working to save this planet, stop the wars and create freedom for women and girls. I have been called a utopian feminist for what I see as possible. Since the 1960’s I have been a radical feminist and a radical lesbian feminist. Many of us have been working together for years. It is no surprise that we continue to be maligned. We are punished for choosing our independence, for speaking out and for creating change. I celebrate every moment that a change is made possible by those of us wanting peace, respect, a world with no war, no violence, our planet saved and protected, all women and girls safe and free to be themselves, free to soar, all people at peace with each other. Even though this violence toward women and girls continues and in ever new ways, now we are able to be working together in numbers that not long ago seemed unimaginable.

Dream Come True

It was when I was given the link to World Pulse as a birthday gift by a woman who knew me well, that my life leapt forward into this beautiful community, a dream come true almost beyond imagining, that we can all be in touch like this, our global home together. After all these years, after all these centuries it is the gift of a lifetime that we have met and are able to be working together, unapologetically focussed on ending all of this ongoing violence toward women and girls.

The intergenerational work being created holds such beautiful traditions. Our herstorians have been preserving the proof through stories carefully documented of times, locations and methods of male violence used in the past and present that women faced and still face, and how we continue to create peace. Also carefully preserved are the stories of peaceful societies then and now in which women were and are respected leaders. World Pulse is our new and growing World Library, the re-emergence of the Library of Alexandria, through our stories documenting our lives, our communities, what we have been living and working to create, joining each other in this leadership, experiencing the possibilities now that we are able to be in touch like this, celebrating finding each other, celebrating women’s leadership calling out the changes needed, grateful for the gift to be together, holding to what we know is possible.

When I was given the gift of the news of World Pulse carrying the interweaving of women’s stories globally, it was a dream come true. I learned how to use a computer, jumped in and found our glorious, wise, courageous and determined community, here to create the world we know is possible. World Pulse has made it possible for me to live the life I believe I was born to live. To be part of creating a world of global peace. To be part of a community who cares for our planet. To be part of building a world community that holds and preserves respect for women and girls everywhere.