Not to make the title confusing, but hells bells I have a lot of questions. I have so many questions that I woke up at 4:30 this morning obsessing over what seems to be my newest obsession, the story of my kind.
Our world is patriarchal, argue all you want that women are equals etc. etc. but let us be honest and say that we have a lot of battles to overcome. I am a feminist and bloody proud! I am dating a feminist that is amazing, smart, caring and absolutely wonderful, oh and my partner is a male. Did I mention how passionate I was taking my Women's Study class a year ago? Or how much it changed my view of the world to where I am NOW determined to blog my little heart out about what I want desperately to know.
I love history, or hystory, and herstory. The only problem is where is HERSTORY? We have snippets, the stories of Cleopatra and Elizabeth I, those women that changed the world in one form or another. We have those famous and rich persons that were born into power. What comes to mind when you think of these women though? What message has society given us? Cleopatra is portrayed as if her sexuality was all that mattered, and as the only thing that got her anywhere. Elizabeth I is shown as frigid shrew, one unwilling to let down her guard for a proper male to take over the English thrown. Then of course you dig deeper and those cracked veneers easily fall off and a far more complex and infatuating intelligent being comes into view. So if the veneer comes off so easily for those women, the famous ones, the ones we have records of, the ones in the REALLY complicated stories of their times, what do the others look like?
What about my relatives that were probably very poor and dreadfully average? Or the women that stood behind the scenes of all the men we hear so much about. What did they do? What did they experience?
I want to know these things. I have been dying to know these things since my childhood, yes I was that five year old that asked questions all the time and drove her parents crazy. Guess what, that kid does not die, and now I have the means to pursue these rabbit trails. I can learn. I can find the answer, and I am going to share it with the world.
So, here is my first step, I brought home books from the library and I am going to begin at the beginning and I am going to begin to know what it means to be woman. I am tired of only hearing about half of the population, I am tired of not getting the rest of the story and I am tired of no one really caring. So here I go, into the unknown, into the land full of shaming, lies, and discomfort. Into the land where maybe I am welcome and often I will want to turn around and into the land that has been calling at me for years.
I am on a new journey. Feel free to join me, and let me know what you think, what you know as we begin to make HERSTORY a real part of our lives.
~Rebecca Lee Robinson
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| The death of Cleopatra |
I love history, or hystory, and herstory. The only problem is where is HERSTORY? We have snippets, the stories of Cleopatra and Elizabeth I, those women that changed the world in one form or another. We have those famous and rich persons that were born into power. What comes to mind when you think of these women though? What message has society given us? Cleopatra is portrayed as if her sexuality was all that mattered, and as the only thing that got her anywhere. Elizabeth I is shown as frigid shrew, one unwilling to let down her guard for a proper male to take over the English thrown. Then of course you dig deeper and those cracked veneers easily fall off and a far more complex and infatuating intelligent being comes into view. So if the veneer comes off so easily for those women, the famous ones, the ones we have records of, the ones in the REALLY complicated stories of their times, what do the others look like?
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| Elizabeth I, coronation 1559 |
I want to know these things. I have been dying to know these things since my childhood, yes I was that five year old that asked questions all the time and drove her parents crazy. Guess what, that kid does not die, and now I have the means to pursue these rabbit trails. I can learn. I can find the answer, and I am going to share it with the world.
So, here is my first step, I brought home books from the library and I am going to begin at the beginning and I am going to begin to know what it means to be woman. I am tired of only hearing about half of the population, I am tired of not getting the rest of the story and I am tired of no one really caring. So here I go, into the unknown, into the land full of shaming, lies, and discomfort. Into the land where maybe I am welcome and often I will want to turn around and into the land that has been calling at me for years.
I am on a new journey. Feel free to join me, and let me know what you think, what you know as we begin to make HERSTORY a real part of our lives.
~Rebecca Lee Robinson
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