strong women, smart women, and why we still need feminism
Selection from Jezebel
By: Sarabeth Berman
Published: May 17, 2015
Link: http://jezebel.com/how-mad-men-helped-me-understand-the-anger-in-my-mother-1704832424
Selection from The New York Times
By: Wednesday Martin
Published: May 16, 2015
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/opinion/sunday/poor-little-rich-women.htm
Selection
https://medium.com/@sailorhg/coding-like-a-girl-595b90791cce
A few years ago in the midst of a therapy session, I made a startling discover. Some women are smart, and some women are strong, but they’re not always the same people. Now, I know I talk about strength in a literal sense— because deadlifts! For this entry in particular, however, I’m focusing on figuratively strong women.
I spent most of my life believing that there are two specific traits that make you a valuable human being: intelligence and creativity. (Remind me to come back and examine where that belief came from at a later date.) As I grew up and started to form my own values, I automatically associated one of my new values (strength of character) with one of my old values (intelligence). I never gave it much thought, it simply seemed true. When I describe someone as a “strong woman” in my therapy session, my therapist asked, “what makes her strong?”
I was stumped. I had literally just described this person as strong, and yet when given the opportunity to elaborate on that description had absolutely nothing (or rather very little) to offer. How could I have had this attribute so very wrong in my head? What could it possibly mean to have a smart woman who was not also strong? And what did it mean about that person’s value?
As it turns out, nothing. We’re all valuable. It’s possible to be both valuable and not a specific attribute in which I place personal value.