Big Girl on Community

Why is it that as women we tear each other down?

I am looking at a post I was working on, one about my former boss, and in reading it I saw that all it was about was tearing her down, making her less of a human to account for my in-humane-ness. Can I fogive a former boss for wearing purple blush-- yes. Can I let go that I was let go for no real reason-- sure. But what are reasons anyways-- they are just little excuses to tell ourselves why we can or can't.

But back to women on women (no not like that). Recently I helped some friends move, and I spent the whole time judging and criticizing my friend for not having her stuff perfectly set to be moved. That she was unorganized, and a mess, controlling and overly concerned with the hand mirrors getting put in the right room. Who cares? Actually, she got ready to move in less than three weeks, while working a full time job and cleaning out another's apartment (David, we miss you). Six years of stuff accumulated, seven different roomates which on first glance of move out, looked liked they moved, however left remants of their lives behind -- cleaners, food in the fridge, books or electronics that never quite worked, etc.

This is my friend I love. She would do anything to make sure I was doing okay.

I give up. Why do we have to tear each other down?

Just recently, Mama Sugs moved in. It is like being in a womens studies, queer studies, African studies class all the time. It is the best part of education, where I am developing ideas, learning and growing. She points out injustices I have never noticed, never seen, nor never done anything about. And what keeps coming up is why do we tear each other down?

So I ask, instead of tear down, why not celebrate?

My mother, on the eve of me going to college warned me about women that wore scented oils and didn't shave, and listened to Melissa Ethridge (before she was out). She said "Please don't be like them." So I stayed away from womens studies, I stayed away from any woman who was too manly, too alternative and instead surrounded myself with men and women who were anything but that. I felt like an outsider, always wanting to express something bigger than where we were going to eat, or who was dating who. I wanted to get at the life stuff, the what am I here for stuff. The stuff that may make a difference. I spent the first weekend of Melissa E.s album release listening to it, connecting to it, feeling like "Yeah, that's right!". I was concerned it was making me gay. I was concerned for the stolen kiss I shared with my down the street neighbor years before, for my lesbian drama teacher, for all the women I had met who had treated me in kindness and respected my opinions-- who I found out later were part of a community that I did not belong to.

This community, my mother was so scared about, is just women. Women who love women, who are trailblazers, who are out there just for being themselves. Women accepting women, just as they are.

But broaden it out, what if, just for a moment, women took the day off from gossiping about one another. They spoke only about positive aspects of each other. We celebrated our differences, that I wear my hair long, and you short, that I am large and curvy and wear red lipstick and you are small and wear no makeup and eat food only from plants. What if we took on that we celebrate each other, for the ability to give birth, for our size, for our ability to communicate, for our hearts and tears and our profound love for one another. It is not about, as my mother thought, being with women who sleep with other women. That hasn't made me gay, and I am sure it never will. But what if it was about creating women as powerful loving beings, no matter what our skin color is, no matter what our tags inside our clothes say, no matter how long we spent in school or how much money we make.

What if, for just a day, we could get past all that other stuff, and stopped tearing down. Once I heard that if you are not expanding you are contracting. So let's expand our hearts, and accept women just as is, no matter who they love. No matter what they wear. Even if it is purple blush.