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Last night my sixteen-year-old daughter came home sobbing. "I...I..." she kept trying to say something but the words wouldn't come out. Eventually, she told me that her feelings had gotten hurt during her Varsity team soccer tryouts.

"Did you perform badly?" I inquired.            

"No," she said; "it's just that some of my friends were mean to me," and explained how a couple of the older girls-with whom she shares sleepovers and clothes-pretended not to know anyone and acted as if they owned the field.

"They kept yelling and bossing a few of us around," she continued, "it was horrible."

"What did the coach do?" I asked.

"Nothing! He sat in a corner and watched," she replied.

"You know," I said, "this is why sometimes the world goes crazy. We think we are better than others, and try to destroy the weaker individuals or species, but all we are doing is hurting ourselves."

"How?" she asked.

"By refusing to recognize that competition, especially amongst women, diminishes our strength and annihilates our compassion, our empathy and our innate gift of caring for ourselves and others. What's good about that?" I replied.

"I guess you are right," she said and went to bed.

It stands to reason that these girls would feel threatened and react accordingly. After all, they know the ropes-having been on the team for more than a year-and fear losing their place. But, as healthy as at times can be , competition taken too far is detrimental and dangerous.

Some of the most famous feminist writers, historians, psychologists and anthropologists like Audrey Lorde, Jane Baker Miller, Rianne Eisler, Rosemary Radford Ruther and Jane Belenky, believe that women should never compete. Born with the natural gifts of nurturing and empathizing with others' suffering, women form the foundations of our society-creating communities, developing relationships, tending to the sick, the elderly, babies and the handicapped. Cultural values of "survival of the fittest," "competing until you die," and "eat what you kill," minimize women's natural gifts. Soon we are warriors ready to kill anything that stand in our way, including friends who have a chance of getting the coveted spot on the team. We fail to see that this behavior also blinds us when we need to save endangered species and appreciate the others' gifts that may not be as apparent as beauty, physical strength or athletic aptitude. These beliefs are what keep us from growing more compassionate, wiser and generous. It is these beliefs that may ultimately destroy our planet as we know it.

Only teens, these girls have already replaced their feminine traits with the ruthless values of a society based on aggression and dominance, no doubt inspired by the adults around them. It breaks my heart, but it also makes me realize how much work there is to do.

I want my girl to make the team; it will help her self-esteem and improve her athletic skills. But, if to make it she has to kill off her inherent, inner beauty, then I'd rather that she didn't. I hope that she sees the difference and can look at her friends with compassion and understanding and, more importantly, the firm resolve of never to be like them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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“This is not about feminism, but the way feminism was taken in by this society. You want to work? Well, you'll work and raise the children and do everything in the house. No one could be expected - woman or man - to work 80, 90 hours a week. It's not human and it's just not bearable.” By, Marilyn French

This sentence best exemplifies the dilemma of America in the twenty first century. Reportedly, women now represent more than fifty percent of the work force, but in many cases they are also the ones raising the kids and managing the household. So, often, the mothers who can afford to do so quit their jobs to raise their children, because they see the impending disaster that arises from two people working insane hours (leaving aside that most men prefer to work than staying home). These same mothers are, unfortunately, faced with the question of what to do once the kids leave home. At the pace at which corporations travel (fast!), it’s unthinkable for a woman to rejoin at the level she was before kids, but it’s also unfair to penalize her because society is set up in a way that doesn’t allow for parents to raise families AND work. So, what is a woman to “do” when the children go to college?

For now, and until our culture understands the need for more balance, we should ask ourselves how we have changed in the years of managing households, organizing other people’s lives and juggling several balls at once, and what that means. The how refers to the level of compassion, wisdom, strength and endurance that we have acquired and the what speaks to where these traits fit the best. Since women have (and fully utilize) their intuition and are by nature versed in affiliation and community with others, it suits us best to help the rest of humanity along, i.e., men and children. Since the ills of society are many, i.e. a culture that is profits driven, a complete disregard for the elderly, a lack of adequate social services, an environment that is being destroyed, why not delve into one of these major issues and apply our natural and learned skills to heal these areas? Whether we have become mothers or not, all of us, middle-age women, are hungry for more fulfilling roles and the feeling that are contributing to the growth of our society in a meaningful way.  Right now there are many not-for-profits organizations addressing these issues, however these much needed changes can also occur as a result of the efforts perpetrated by the huge pool of talent of mothers rejoining the work force once the children leave.

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