“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. Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and don’t teach boys the same? We raise girls to see each other as competitors not for jobs or accomplishments, which I think can be a good thing, but for the attention of men. We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are… Feminist: the person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.”
-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists
Being a woman in a world where our mothers, grandmothers, and even all the men that have encouraged them along the way, helped pave the beginning of a long road to women’s equality, we are continually faced with challenges. We have many people trying to tear us down, rather than building us up. We are in a world where respect and decency are almost impossible to be considered a standard; even in the most historic of events we pride ourselves on being a part of, like our presidential race. Women face so much adversity in their lives, but the biggest roadblock in our path to greater success is the lack of empowerment from other women.
Why do we demoralize and tear other women down? Is it because we have been taught this behavior at such a young age? Is it because we are biologically programmed to fight with our same sex? Regardless of the reason, we all have decisions to make. The decision I find that many women make and continue to make is to tear other women down. This needs to STOP. Women have other difficulties in life to worry about as they approach college, work, and personal lives, so why do other women have to factor in our long list of concerns? The answer is they shouldn’t.
Many women become so fearful that they aren’t good enough when looking at the women in their life. Women also feel that they need to fear another woman will take her success from her or outshining her in success. Women also project their fears on others and let their emotions determine how they look at other women. When we start to feel these things, we tend to get defensive and start to belittle one another and find faults in who that woman is, rather than empowering them. There is the ability to be able to work alongside a woman and both be able to have success and power. There can be times where we put our pettiness aside and uplift a woman who needs help instead of trying to victimize her and continue to push her to fail. I believe in a world where this will become the norm; I know it can be.
A woman should want other women to help them succeed in their personal and work lives. We, more importantly, need one another to continue to pave a way in this fight for true equality–in our own lives, and in our careers. We need a network of women to help empower, elevate, support, and mentor one another. The day we finally can impart our wisdom and not be driven by fear or need to compete, but to empower and continue success, we will have equality among the sexes.
Empowered women empower women!