The Answer I Have - Other Women.

We are mad. We are scared. We are concerned for our babies. Over the past several weeks, well over half of my therapy sessions have, in one way or another, been centered around the pain that current events have brought to the surface for women. We have been reminded that most women have been violated, harassed, coerced, at the hand of violence, and in so many situations, justice did not come.

We have been reminded that, sometimes, the systems we are told will protect us have instead perpetuated the very harms they were meant to correct.

I think of justice as an attempt to repair a harm- to acknowledge what happened, to restore dignity, to protect the vulnerable, and to prevent the harm from continuing. And yet, there are times when it feels as though our culture and our institutions do more to perpetuate harm, or give permission for harm, than they do to repair it.

I don’t have the answer on the societal scale, but in the face of unjust world, there is one thing that keeps coming up for me as an essential to life as a woman- other women.

There is nothing more powerful than women talking, women gathering, women offering a hand to one another. We provide a safe place for each other. And we can truly help each other heal.

As far back as we can look in history, women have found ways to care for one another, share knowledge, preserve traditions, tend to the sick, birth and raise children, mourn together, protect one another, and pass wisdom from one generation to the next.

Women have also been persecuted for the ways they gathered, practiced healing, held knowledge, challenged authority, or stepped outside the roles prescribed for them.

The history of the persecution of women who were labeled witches is one particularly brutal example. Across centuries and cultures, women, particularly those who were poor, socially marginalized, unconventional, or perceived as possessing particular knowledge, could become targets of suspicion and violence. Women who served as healers, midwives, or keepers of traditional knowledge were caught within these systems of persecution. Yet, despite all of this, women continued to find each other, teach each other, and care for each other.

My own community of women- my angel mamas, as Clarissa Pinkola Estés might call them, has been one of the greatest sources of power and freedom in my life. They have allowed me to become more whole and unafraid.

I have lived and volunteered in women-led recovery homes for women struggling with addiction, witnessing women help one another find a path toward freedom and empowerment. I have sat in countless ceremonies led by women that became some of the most psychologically and spiritually freeing experiences of my life. I work alongside a team of women who genuinely love and support one another as we do the deeply human work of caring for others. I could not do this work without them. I participate in a book club filled with brilliant women who are willing to question what they are told, look at the world critically, and encourage one another to do the same.

It does’t mean that women are more compassionate and moral than men. I have also been blessed with countless men who served as my protectors and biggest allies during some of my darkest days. All this means is that there is something incredibly powerful about intentionally creating communities in which women can speak honestly, think critically, share knowledge, tell the truth about what they have experienced, and remind one another of our own inherent worth.

Maybe healing has always happened this way- quietly, relationally, woman to woman.

I don’t have an answer for the world at large. I have an answer for my world- my own little corner of it.

My answer is other women.

We will not let each other face what is broken in the world alone.