‘The Other Women’ Pink Teaches Purple Part II

So last column I write about the women who trash, betray or hurt other women. The discussion picks up with the question ‘What about the other women?’ ; the women who help, nurture and lift?
 
Let us begin with what happened between Krispy Kreme and Jack in the Box.
 
Down another 8.5 pounds this month I decided to do what every slimmer downer tries to do; sneak in a little mouth happiness comfort food in a way that might not show on the scales; a midweek splurge.
 
On Aurora Ave in Seattle there is, at one point, a spot where there is both a Krispy Kreme and a Jack in the Box. So, right out there for everyone to know, I did it. I drove through one and got the $1.89 jumbo jack that literally slides through your body with mayonnaise and an order of onion rings and then like some foody do si do right allemanded through the Krispy Kreme with a glazed cream filled, chocolate glazed cake and a large coffee. We’re talkin’ $7.00 of bliss. All to be eaten with complete mindfulness.
 
So as I’m starting my ,’Please God , let me burn this off in four days before I weigh again’ prayer headed through the construction zone tape at the exit onto the highway, there she is, Miss Trim and Fit of the Month, blond sleek pony tail bobbing college student with perfect make up glaring at me.
 
I defer and slip in after she crosses in front of me. That’s when I see them. On each back pocket of the incredibly short daisy dukes is a rhinestone longhorn . As I stop at the light and she continues to glare at me, placing her foot in classic seductive pose up against the traffic light pole, I realize she is not a college girl on her way to the sports bar. She is a working girl beginning her shift and the glare was most likely defensive. |
 
"Oh, honey" I wanted to call out. "I don’t judge you. I just want to free all of you who are in a spot where you have to let strange men do whatever they want with their bodies for you to earn.
 
And in this world money is pretty much everything. So for me to offer encouragement to a woman who is going to make in one night what I make in a week is pretty silly. What I have, self love, some modicum of peace, is not going to seem attractive at first. She can pay her bills. Picturing myself with the conversation starting with her... Well every interventionist in human trafficking knows that one.
 
I drove home. At three o’clock in the morning I felt like I wanted I to throw up. Of course. Mouth happiness usually equals stomach blech. I thought of Miss College ...Not rhinestones. How many men had she been with so far? How much money had she made? How do we convince women that owning yourself and being poor is better than laying there for a few hundred bucks? Is it? Does it matter? On the grand scale of things , little is being done for issues of assault on women. And we divide the issues up losing even more power to change.
 
Anyway...
 
Having begun work on the column I thought of the women in my life who kept me, a victim of childhood sexual abuse, from being a prostitute: Aunt Ginny, Aunt Nancy, the women missionaries at my church,Marilyn, Bev, Billie, my friends from Mills, my professors, yes, even knitting group. They are the quiet women. They ask no high profile. They are full of love and fun and humour and do not act like the worst in men to get ahead. Yes they serve, but they also lead. They do not worry about getting ahead, they concern themselves with being and doing their best.
 
I’ve been putting a new price tag on myself and my services. That has been uncomfortable for me. But isn’t being a quiet woman who uses her talents to add to the world worth the same as laying on your back while some stranger grunts and groans? Look at the services women provide and who gets paid the most to do what. It’s telling.
 
Women are defeating breast cancer because of the solidarity of the quiet women who are victorious in things that matter. They demand and work for a cure.
 
Hopefully Domestic Violence and human trafficking will find the same solidarity and start to emphasize a search for the cure. Right now the emphasis is on intervention and support. that’s great,obviously.
 
But...
 
Teaching women that quiet determined self confidence, self esteem, and self worth drive out cancerous violent cells of using sex and fists as power and sexual pleasure ,teaching them to recognize, resist, report. Teaching men, the pimps, and the 5% of women who are abusers how to handle fear and feeling overwhelmed, learning that little lumps, little incidences matter. Helping them take the early stages seriously. All those need to be sentences we finish together.
 
Then wearing glittery rhinestones will just be for fun. And no one will have to perch their foot on a light pole to earn a good living. We will eradicate both diseases that threaten women’s lives.
 
Love,
Deborah