Finally Understanding “Female First”
Since attending the Contemporary Women’s Issues Workshop, I have some space in my mind to move out of a slumber I had been in about doing women’s liberation work.
At the workshop I worked on identifying as a female and the difficulty I have in putting my attention there. I was encouraged to take the direction “fully female,” over and over again. I felt reluctant, but did it because I trusted Diane [Balser] as my counselor. She said that for a long time “man” has been synonymous with “human” and that females have in a sense been invisible. I had deeply internalized this.
My father’s anger permeated our home. My mother was terrified of it. I was terrified, too, and so were my siblings. My father would also humiliate me publicly, and I internalized what he said as being true about me. Because of the physical, emotional, and sexual inappropriateness of the patterns my father acted out on me, I deeply believed that there was something wrong with me—and that it was somehow connected with my being female.
It has taken me almost thirty years to truly understand the importance of the direction “female first.” I did not understand it until this workshop, even though I have given the direction to others many times. I can now see how it is connected to my struggle to notice my existence, which is connected to extremely painful early incidents that I have not wanted to feel but that I am now determined to keep facing.
I exist, I matter, and there has never been anything wrong with me. I am a powerfully intelligent female. Female first!
North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of women
(Present Time 204, July 2021)