Being a strong woman is a tough thing to tackle, especially in an age where we are constantly bombarded with images and ideals and voices telling us how we should be. We should be women who stand up for ourselves, but not too loudly. We should be chaste, not “give it up” too easily, while taking charge of our sexuality. Make your opinion heard, but don’t whine. Be skinny but not too skinny. Have curves, but not too many, and only in the right places.
I’ve heard it said that a woman’s strength is in her looks. I’ve heard “fake it ‘til you make it,” that confidence is a major indicating factor of strength. Some would say a strong woman is one who doesn’t take any shit. A woman who takes control of her sexuality and turns the concept of men as conquerors on its head. I’ve heard that, but I’ve also heard these women called shrews and sluts and hags.
When I was a child of about twelve or thirteen, awkward and uncomfortable with my budding sexuality, my lips still too big for my face, my eyebrows overgrown and wild, I was haunted by the subconscious feeling that my existence and anything of note I might have done would never truly be meaningful without the validation of men. I recall being told on the playground one day by a girl in my grade that I was too smart for boys to ever like me. Today, I’d like to say that I never think back to that comment. That I realize the invalidity of her claim. That yes, boys do like me, despite (or because of) my intelligence and even still it doesn’t matter because I am not smart for their benefit or otherwise. I’d like to say that now that I am a woman, I am a strong one, with all the intelligence of mind and spirit that comes with that. I’d like to say that, and very often I truly believe it.
But history tells me that there is truth to what she said. If you look back, you’ll see that female strength is only a recent invention. Only until recent history, the woman who displayed intelligence, individuality, or a desire for agency in her own life, was considered repulsive and evil. She was vilified, warned against, and even in some cases, suffered her death for the crime. We have a whole host of examples of this, from Lucrezia Borgia, the poisonous bride and daughter of a licentious pope, who, it may be argued, was only a victim of her time. To the villains of Disney films, often female. To the witches of Salem, who, according to a New York Times op-ed by Stacy Schiff, titled Inside the Salem Witch Trials, in some cases only committed “the capital offense of having more wit than their neighbors.” Men throughout history have feared female intelligence and strength. A woman’s thought, a highly undocumented and mysterious thing even now, has the touch of the unknown and strikes fear into the hearts of men and when that fear manifests itself, it often carries disastrous consequences for those of us that belong to “the fairer sex”. A bad date. A sexist comment on Facebook. A lost election. An execution.
When I hear the word “strength," I see Debbie Harry in pearls, hair lit up in an almost divine way like the Madonna painted on the wall of one of those ancient Byzantine churches. With hands raised toward heaven. In gold paint. She stands in a white dress (a picture I saw on an album cover once), surrounded by her harem of suited men. She growls out the lyrics to “One Way or Another”, announcing to the whole world that yes, women can chase. Yes, women can be aggressive. Yes, they have desires. Debbie Harry has successfully taken charge of her sexuality without exploiting it. I still haven’t figured out how she does it, whether it is calculated or just the way she is, but there is something solitary and fearsome about her. Whatever the case, I’m a huge fan.
I inherited this love for Debbie Harry and her 1970s punk rock band from my mother, a self-proclaimed badass, who brought me into this world to a background of Kate Bush circa 1989 singing “This Woman’s Work” from a scratchy hospital stereo system and a stream of steady expletives. My mother is a woman who knows how to hold her own, who, as a young child, declared without hesitation to a room of fervent Catholics one Sunday during Catechism that her favorite “famous person” was not Jesus Christ as expected, but “Blondie”. A female and a person of color who struggled for decades to be treated as an equal in a world run by white men. A woman with teeth like a shark but who is simultaneously capable of deep warmth and kindness. A woman who never cowers when faced with a lack of recognition favoring the men in her life, but raises her voice to the level of theirs and demands to be heard. She is, needless to say, my hero.
She does not apologize. She does not apologize for her feelings, however irrational they might be. She does not apologize for existing, for taking up space, for calling people out on their bullshit, for things she cannot control.
And I think that is the key… Strength for a woman is a double edged sword, but what matters is that you are true to yourself in whatever way works for you, because female strength is not a one-size-fits-all concept. That’s how, I think, Debbie Harry got it right. She wasn’t strong because of her looks or her sexuality or her power over men, but for her refusal to be anything other than herself.
So, be demure and quiet, if that is who you are, but do not apologize for it. Be loud and profane and wild, if that is who you are, but do not change for anyone but yourself. Be awkward and clumsy and spacey and know that you have a significant place in the world. Love men. Love women. Love art. Love sports. Be prudish. Be promiscuous. Wear too much makeup. Wear none at all.
It doesn’t matter as long as you do your best to be the best person you can be and remember that your birth is not an accident. You are powerful, because of, not in spite of your femaleness.
