laurawhiterivers

I remember my mother telling me about the sixties and Gloria Steinem, Janis Joplin and finishing schools.  I come from a family that was very matriarchal when i was growing up.  It wasn’t always like that, but in my young memory…the women in our family ran things.

Tonight I played the clip of Malala Yousafzai on the Jon Stewart Show to my eight year old daughter. This led to a very inspiring discussion about education, language, colonization and other countries. 

I hate that Americans are so myopic.  I’ve never left the country (Canada never really counts, does it?) but I can see through watching current events, listening to history and observing social media that there is a world past our oceans that is bursting with creativity, brilliance, violence and oppression. I want my daughters to understand we have it good here in many ways, but this isn’t the only way to build a country – we are not always right and the rest of the world isn’t just backwards by default.  We can’t be spoiled, we truly need to understand what other cultures are made of if we can, and appreciate the bravery and spirit of those who rise from adversity. Likewise we should be strong with our own convictions.

You see, I am trying to combat the empty posturing that so many girls display today.  I was very greatful for her engagement in the conversation…but I was so sad too.  Because-  I remember feeling crestfallen when my mother explained that women couldn’t always vote, work outside the home, or choose wether or not to have families.  She told me that we as women could not loose the ground our grandmothers and great grandmothers had fought for.

I was at once proud of them and confused. I became unsure of what the world really was – not what it had seemed for sure. I didn’t fit in at the top of the food chain anymore and it was unsettling.

My mother gave me an apple of knowledge during our conversations about women and society- or really an education as it were. Curiosity and a need for education are innate to us human beings as Malala suggests to Jon Stewart, but society and cultural pressures can hush the flame.  Tonight, I tried to fan the flames that seem to flicker so clearly in my daughters eyes.

After our exchange though I am left sad, because I stole a little of that natural confidence away from her as I made the world a bigger scarier place for a girl.