You are so Much More....

In a day when popular media would have us believe we are no more than desperate Bachelorettes and dueling Housewives I am so pleased to remind you that you are so much more.  So much more.

Almost one hundred years ago, in November, 1912, a seminal Oregon ballot measure passed that granted women the right to vote.  In 2011, three women from war-torn patriarchical societies won the Nobel peace prize.

Women at every level are changing the landscape.  Women are still a force with which to be reckoned. I was particularly thrilled to learn how the Liberian women would stop at nothing to end the destructive practices of Charles Taylor and his warlords including withholding sexual intimacy from their husbands, to stripping naked (a shameful thing), and unwavering protest.  We are as strategic as we are savvy and we definitely have power.

At a recent political debate in 2012, that was attended by people who longed for the traditional values US, many, if not all in the audience gave presidential candidate Newt Gingrich a standing ovation.  See the speaker asked him to respond to statements by his former wife that Gingrich left his first wife while she was fighting cancer and took up with wife number 2. While married to wife number 2, he had a 6-year affair and subsequently left no. 2 when she was diagnosed with a chronic disease for wife number 3.  Gingrich thought it was despicable for the moderator to bring that up in a Presidential debate.  A lot of the accusations are no secret and Gingrich has owned to them, so I question, which is more despicable? To ask the embarrassing question or to demonstrate a habit of disrespecting and consistently dishonoring women.  And as for the women who allow themselves to be treated so poorly.  What should our legacy be?  What is our purpose? Should we offer ourselves to be trampled on emotionally and paraded as though we are brainless animals with no sense of self, to be used and disposed of at the whim of others? Or do we want to take our place in life doing our part to shape the world?

I know I have a purpose, so I choose to take my place in shaping the world.

The next time the media tries to inundate us with the destructive depiction of our worst selves, I hope you remember, you are worth so much more.  So much more!! I hope you aspire to a legacy that can uplift even one person, in addition to yourself.


Read more about women who are peacemakers and changing the world.  They are game changers and so are you!!  If you choose.