Standing in Our Power

Me
A Younger Me

The Republican candidate for President is in trouble for his sexist behavior again. An old tape has surfaced. On the tape, Trump can be heard bragging about how he can grope any woman he wants. He boasts that he is rich, so he can simply grab women “by the pussy.”

When women across America express their disgust and outrage, Trump dismisses his comments as “locker room talk.” According to him, what he said was no big deal – “just words, people.”  Trump claims lots of men talk like this. And the most bizarre part? Many men (and even some women) in this country agree with Trump and dismiss his vile comments as simply dirty talk.

1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. Assaulted… But grabbing women by the pussy is apparently no big deal to a lot of people. And if a woman objects to Trump’s comments?  Well, she is simply “overreacting.”

Kelly Oxford knows better. She was quite disturbed by Trump’s comments. So she went on Twitter last Friday night and asked women to tweet to her about the first time they were assaulted.  “They aren’t just stats. I’ll go first: Old man on city bus grabs my ‘pussy’ and smiles at me, I’m 12,” she wrote.  By the next day, Oxford was receiving  a flood of first-person accounts of sexual assaults. And by Monday afternoon, nearly 27 million people had responded or visited Oxford’s Twitter page.

(Source: NY Times article by Jonathan Mahler,
For Many Women, Trump’s ‘Locker Room Talk’ Brings Memories of Abuse)

What is a woman to do in the face of this endless stream of sexist abuse? How will this ever stop?  And what do I tell my daughter?

Anyone who reads my blog, knows that I am a big proponent of love. I write often about the healing power of love. But what can love do in the face of this aggressive sexist behavior?  And what is the best response a woman like me can make in this situation? These are the questions I have been chewing on for the past few days.

Here is where I am at today:  Yes, we absolutely need to come from a place of love — this world desperately needs more love. But we must love ourselves first.

We must love ourselves from a place of POWER — a place where we stop minimizing ourselves by apologizing for our own needs, feelings, and opinions. We must love ourselves deeply, and own our power. Then, and only then, will we stop allowing other people to trivialize us.

We matter. Our needs, feelings and opinions matter. It is time for us to embrace how wise and powerful and important we truly are to the world.

Our time has come. We must not be silent any longer. It is time for us to stand up and say NO MORE!  This crap is NOT OK.  It is time for us to stand in our power and say NO to this type of bullshit.  And you know what else? This is exactly what will change the world – woman after woman standing in her power and speaking her truth.

Can we love ourselves enough to stand in our power and DEMAND honor and respect?  It is time. We must do this, for ourselves, and for each other.

Sometime Love Means Shouting NO!

Trump sneer

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.
Without them humanity cannot survive.

~Dalai Lama

I have been sitting still, watching and listening, for decades.  Writers are natural observers and I am no exception. I love watching people and events from the sidelines.  But in the past few weeks, it has become more and more difficult for me to simply sit still and observe.

I have been watching and listening for months as Donald Trump encourages his followers to act from a place of hatred and rage. In the beginning, Mr. Trump seemed like a bad joke – a blowhard reality TV star runs for president, really?! But now he has managed to become the Republican nominee for President of the United States, and this ridiculous political side show just got very very scary.

I want to run screaming into the street and stop cars. I want to ask everyone I meet if they have listened carefully to what Mr. Trump says in speech after speech.  I want to insist that they follow me home to my living room where I can show them clip after clip of Trump gleefully inciting hatred and racism and divisions between people. And I want to remind them of what McCarthy and other peddlers of hate have done to our country in the past.  I want to beg people to not let that happen again.

But I won’t do that. I won’t run into the street and stop strangers. I would be labeled crazy. I won’t make people sit still, watch and LISTEN to what Donald Trump has been saying for months.  I wish I could but I cannot.

What I can do is express my deep fear about what Donald Trump may do if he becomes our President. I can voice my concerns to family and friends, and to you, my readers. I can tell you how disturbed I am by all the vitriol and fear that Mr. Trump is selling.

I believe that love is always the answer. And sometimes love requires that we stand up and shout NO, this is NOT OK!  Sometime love requires that we step out of our comfort zone and enter the fray.  

Mr. Trump’s vision of America is NOT my vision. He does NOT speak for me or the Americans I know and love.

Polite silence is not the answer. Sitting still is not the answer. So I am standing up and shouting NO! every chance I get. I am telling family and friends exactly what I have observed in this man who wants to be my president. And I am doing it in the name of love and unity and compassion.

I hope you will stand up and join me.

“Trump came one breath short of advocating a police state tonight
(it is not an accident that David Duke tweeted such great applause)…
I pray the better angels of America will rise up and
dissolve all the hatred that was spewed
into our body politic tonight.” 

~Marianne Williamson,  July 21, 2016