Friday, April 26, 2013

A-Z Blog Challenge: W is for Women by Von Rupert


It's that time again!!!  Unwritten and some 1000 other blogs participated last year, and this year looks to be even bigger! Just like last year, I've opened up the blog to host 26 fabulous writers, with each day of the challenge representing the letters of the alphabet from A-Z. I've asked each writer to focus on something that is personal to them, so we can learn more about each other. 

Please check out some of the other blogs in the challenge here: 

A-Z BLOG CHALLENGE 2013



Women Are My Tribe
by Von Rupert

Women are beautiful. Without makeup. Without pretense. Without covering their mouths when they laugh.  Without a man, without children, without hurting other women.   

 Women are beautiful.  With breasts that are big and breasts that are small, with breasts that don’t match (because really they do), with breasts that have been rebuilt.   

Women are beautiful.  With wrinkles, and pimples, and scars.  With all three.  With glasses, with braces, with wheelchairs.  With brown hair and gray hair, with straight hair and curly hair, coarse hair and fine. With no hair. 

Women are my tribe.

Lotions won’t make you beautiful. A diet won’t make you beautiful. A pair of jeans won’t make you beautiful.  All those companies with their flashy ads won’t make you beautiful. For ten bucks they’ll steal your confidence and sell you a bottle of crap and swear it’s the fountain of youth. 

None of their models look like you.  None of them look like me.  I’m not that skinny or that blond or that tan or that black or that curvy or that anything.  My smile isn’t that perfect, my lashes aren’t that long, my skin isn’t that smooth.   

I wasn’t conceived in a computer—photoshopped, cropped, and whitened--and neither were you. 
Enough!

Enough of their ifsIf you wear this bra, you’re beautiful.  If you buy this cream, you’re beautiful.  If you starve yourself, you’re beautiful .
   
You ARE beautiful.  

Courtesy: Dove's True Beauty Campaign
Your beauty flows from your mind and your heart as it swims with your soul.  Your beauty whispers and shouts through your outlook, your deeds, and your passion. Beauty throbs outward and inward through our tribe like heartbeats, like drumbeats.  Like thunder.

Women, it’s time. Lift our tribe up.  We’re connected, all of us, like those paper dolls we used to cut out, the ones with hands touching.  What you say to one, you say to us all.  Don’t be so quick to criticize.  Don’t be so fast to slap one of our own against the bathroom wall.   Don’t poison our tribe to be cool, to be loved, to be bigger.   Be a woman who lifts us up and doesn’t shred us down.

I am woman; hear me roar for other women.  I am smart. I am beautiful. I am the shared heart of us all.  Women are my tribe.  They are my midwives.  They are my doctors.  They are my teachers and scientists.  They are my comedians and my mentors. They are soft arms holding me, fierce legs guiding me, sweet words lifting me.   

I am their breasts and they are mine, and we need to nurse each other until we’re all bursting with the knowledge that we are strong and beautiful and more than enough to save this world.  

I am Rehtaeh Parsons. I am Sojourner Truth—“ain’t I a woman!”  I am Marissa Mayer.   I am Dr. Vandana Shiva.  I am J.K. Rowling.  They are my mothers and my sisters and my daughters. I AM and they ARE and you ARE. We are ONE, and we are a tribe.

And we’re beautiful.

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Von Rupert is a wife, mother, writer, and podcast producer.  She mentors other writers at Bob Hembree’s free writing course, http://writersvillage.com/f2k/   You can find her blog at  http://wheretheshadowsmeetthelight.blogspot.com/  and her flash fiction stories at http://www.everydayfiction.com/

24 comments:

  1. I feel so empowered! Like I can do anything! Thanks, Von!!

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    1. Thanks for reading my post, Rebecca!!! Yay, I'm glad it was empowering. ♥

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    2. Beautifully written and empowering I'd be honored to be apart of your Woman Tribe Sistership ☮ ❤ ☼

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    3. Beautifully written an honor to be apart of the Woman Tribe ☮ ❤ ☼

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    4. Wow, thank you so much, Jill, for reading my post and commenting. You are definitely a part of my sistership! You totally ROCK. :) (((HUGS))) ♥

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  2. Wow! wonderful article, Von. It is very powerful and so true. I may not be a woman, but I am still amazed at how some seem so obsessed with looking like the models seen on TV. My oldest daughter was one for a while. I had to sit her down and convince her that she was already beautiful and didn't need any of the garbage they peddle on tv.

    Like I said, wonderful post. I enjoyed it very much.

    ~TJ

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    1. TJ, I am thrilled that you stopped by and commented. One thing I didn't want to do when I wrote this piece was alienate men. I didn't want to write a man-bashing piece, and sometimes women empowerment pieces run that risk. It's a slippery slope.

      I'm glad you talked to your daughter about beauty. I'll bet she never forgets that talk. I think these issues are especially hard for young girls. They don't yet have the confidence to "buck the system" which makes it even more important for parents to help them develop a positive self-image.

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    2. Nor do they hear it ever enough from the males around them. Refreshing to read, TJ. And yay for you and your daughter.

      Very nice piece, Ms. Rupert.

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    3. Thank you Ilse! And I think you're right, it makes such a difference when dads broach these topics with their daughters. They're much more likely to demand that same sort of respect from boys when they begin dating.

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  3. Great article, Von! Women everywhere would be better off to read something like this and take it to heart. We are each unique in our own way.

    The internet makes it nice in that we usually get to know each other sight unseen. Our personalities can shine through first before judgments can be made on skin-deep beauty.

    Yvonne Rupert, you epitomize a beautiful woman both inside and out. If anybody didn't know that before reading your article, they sure do now.



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    1. Leo, you're making me cry! You ARE one of the most encouraging, authentic, and generous women I've ever known in my entire life! And I'm so glad you're part of MY TRIBE! You are all things beautiful. (((HUGS)))

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  4. Wonderful way to ward off the emotion wrenching advertising. Enjoyed this post! http://nancyjardine.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/quern-nose-to-grindstone.html

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    1. Thank you so much for your encouraging words, Nancy! I have grown so weary of advertising. Even when they say we're all beautiful just the way we are they attach a "but" to it. And then women end up fighting with other women when we all should be working together. We need to love and support one another even when our choices and paths are different. ♥

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  5. What an inspiring piece, Von. I'm going to show this to my beautiful daughters. Your tribe is lucky to have you. And as a member of that other tribe, I'm happy to count you as a friend.

    Thanks,
    Josh

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    1. Thank you so much, Josh! I'm so happy that you liked this piece. I was worried that it might alienate men, but I took the chance because I really thought the topic was an important one. Your tribe is very lucky to have men like you. :) And so is your family.

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  6. I love this post! Women are so hard on each other. So much more critical of ourselves and each other than men are. I think that's one reason why I don't have a lot of close female friends. It's just so ingrained in us to compare and judge instead of accept and love unconditionally. Once you find friends like that, they are definitely keepers!!

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    1. Thanks, Mysti! I'm so glad I was able to share it here on your blog. I agree with you about women being more critical of themselves and other women. I just wish it would stop. It breaks my heart to see so many women put themselves down because they don't measure up to some computer generated version of aesthetic beauty. So sad. And the infighting is just as bad. The "mommy wars" is an example of it. Our paths shouldn't have to be the same for us to support and protect one another. :)

      Okay, I'll step off the soap box. (((hugs))) Mysti! You're totally beautiful!

      P.S. I'm so embarrassed. I sent this piece to you with a typo--course instead of coarse in the third paragraph. Is it too late to fix? Thank you.

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    2. I don't think anyone even noticed, it was such a moving post! But I can fix :)

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  7. I was so uplifted by these beautiful words. I must say my utmost respects to you Yvonne...you have epitomised women... I am proud to have you as my mentor...you made me proud of my body, my mind and my 'self'. Thank you!

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    1. Thank you so much, Arshia! You inspire ME daily! My life is better because you are in it and you help me appreciate the blessings and liberties I have. I don't take them for granted anymore because of YOU. (((hugs)))

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  8. Beautiful work, Von. I'm gonna go hug on my wife now.

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    1. Aww, Milo, that is awesome. Exactly the right thing to do. :) Thanks so much for stopping by and giving my post a read.

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    1. Thank you, Audrey!How lovely of you to stop by and read it. I'm glad you liked it. ♥

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