If you ask a man how he’d like to leave this world. Many of them say that they’d love to go in a dramatic, self-sacrificial way. They get their family out of the fire just in time before the beams of the house crush him. Or he stays behind to provide time for his comrades to escape. They get everyone out just in time before the bomb goes off – caught in the explosion, they leave the living in a fireworks display of carnage and heroics.
But it always bothered me. Because why won’t they choose to fight to stay? Even in literature women are the prize or the treasure to fight for. They are given titles like “most beautiful woman in the land” and then fought over like a toy. Troy is no different. Does the saga ever ask Helen if she wanted thousands to die for her? Maybe she simply wanted to be left alone – away from an abusive husband and the world picking her apart like threads from a tapestry.
To me, feminism is all people choosing to stay. Is choosing not to go out in glory, but stay to ease the burden of the community. It is listening to the journeys and stories of both sexes. Feminism isn’t just about “women’s rights.” Because once you empower, protect, teach and truly love a generation of women you uplift entire communities.
For those who say, “you’re being dramatic,” or, “the wage gap is barely there – women often earn less than men because they often leave jobs to care for children or choose jobs that pay less.” Maybe think about that a little deeper. Why do careers that are more women-centered paid less? Many women would choose people-centered, carer-based employment. Nurses, teachers, hairdressers, administrative staff.
Women are often the heartbeat of communities, towns, cities, countries. When your heart fears her neighborhood after dark. When women fear walking to the bathroom by themselves. When we are teaching our daughters to trust her gut, to have an escape route from any room, to always cover her drink. When we sexualize our little girls with short-shorts, tiny bikinis for toddlers, thinner materials, no pockets.
Our hearts are not safe.
We need to stop dreaming of dramatic ways to protect our families.
Instead.
Stay.
Stand up.
We need to stand beside our mothers because they breathe life into not only our lives, but those around them. Why is post-natal depression soaring? Why are birthrates dropping? Why are we so isolated?
Because our hearts aren’t safe.
This goes beyond money and success. This goes to every baby girl who needs her daddy to say, “I will stay for you.” Feminism is masculine in its outcomes.
To protect. To provide. To sacrifice. To love.
Stay.
Lift up your female counterparts because she will reach down and help you up with her.
Stay.
Women are not toys. They are not prizes. They are not servants.
They are hearts.
It is time we stopped trying to cut them into the shapes we want them to be. It is time we helped provide the space they need. The call our mothers needed when no one answered back. It is small moments of time that add up.
Especially when thousands of people do small moments at once.
It is telling off a mate for disgusting behavior towards or about women. It is providing a seat for a pregnant lady on the bus. It is making sure a girl has friends near when she’s intoxicated. It is holding her boundaries and vulnerabilities’ – “No.” is a full sentence. It is standing next to your sister in the doctor’s office because the pain is not in her head. Losing weight will not fix this.
She needs us. She needs you.
Stay.
Because if we don’t. Who will?
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