by IRENE FOWLER, Contributor

Woman, thy names are:
Trouble, Temerity, Triumph!

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Good morning everyone and welcome.

Whatever your preferred flavour of life is – sweet, savoury, spicy or somethin’ else, welcome to the melting pot. I am on West African time, so ‘servez-vous.’

Even though we are helpless to change things on a macro scale, we can in our own small ways, align with love and the positive. As we contribute our quota, we are building towards a critical mass which can force change/s for good.

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The frightful Taliban-dominated landscape is fraught with land mines, which could blow up most, if not all, progress made in women’s autonomy, well-being and development in Afghanistan. The roles and value of women and the girl-child, in Afghan society writ-large, remains to be seen.

One hopes that the powers that be, will not create structures which cause women and girls to be viewed through the same lens, reserved for animate and inanimate chattel.

Meanwhile, the recent Texas State law, greatly impinging on women’s reproductive rights, should also cause serious concern for the application and efficacy of the rule of law. Alarm bells should ring, regardless of which camp one belongs to; pro-choice or otherwise. The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against the State of Texas challenging the Bill. In  the words of Attorney-General Merrick Garland: “The Act is clearly unconstitutional under longstanding Supreme Court precedent.”

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Quotes from “The Handmaids Tale” by Margaret Atwood:

“Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.”

“A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.”

“Sanity is a valuable possesion; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough, when the time comes.”

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Women – More – Not – Less 

by Irene Fowler

Prized, placed on pedestals, pilloried, pinions
Targets of eons-long, domination and control
Woman, thy names are: Trouble, Temerity, Triumph
Co-heirs of the planet, sovereign souls, sentient beings
Gifted and outspoken, still many atimes, cancelled, unheard, silenced
Women, birth canals of the human species; too often, rendered robotic birth-machines
Running on blind faith, desperate hope or wretched despair
First, yet also dastardly last, in freedom to exercise full, inherent, reproductive rights
Beyond-brave, bearers of familial, communal and societal burdens
Incubators of dreams, wide-awake and watchful, in a barbed, stinging universe of misogyny
Sages and healers, of their inner and outer realms
Deep wells of tenacity, courage and excellence
Towers and pillars of strength and resilience
In myriad ways, sung and unsung, endless contributors to global advancements
Tried, tested, tired, manacled hands, hoist the banner of freedom
To be more, not less
Women, the crowning glory of creation, lay at the iron feet of imperious, hubristic, patriarchal suzerainty
Female autonomy, potential, prowess subjugated to male chauvinism
Women of the world; different faces, diverse battles, one imperative, timeless, cosmic struggle
Echoes of crusades, conflicts, travel through the annals of history
Legatees of the freedom torch, fiercely, tirelessly, fight on for equality
The scars of warfare, equal, to badges of honour and dedication
To be more, not less.

©2021 by Irene Fowler

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Quotes from famous women:

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

— Anais Nin

A woman is like a tea bag – you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.

— Eleanor Roosevelt

I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.

— Mother Teresa

The day will come when men will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside, but in councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race.

— Susan B. Anthony

A strong woman understands that the gifts such as logic, decisiveness, and strength are just as feminine as intuition and emotional connection. She values and uses all of her gifts.

— Nancy Rathburn

A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform.

— Diane Mariechild

Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.

— Amelia Earhart

The best protection any woman can have … is courage.

— Elizabeth Cady Stanton

We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.

— Marie Curie

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

— Alice Walker

One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.

— Virginia Woolf

You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.

— Maya Angelou

Women are never stronger than when they arm themselves with their weaknesses.

— Madame Marie du Deffand