Choose to challenge

When we are born, we are met almost immediately with cultural and familial messages transmitted both explicitly and implicitly about who we are, who we are supposed to be, and how we are to see and regard others.

Unless confronted by education or compelling life experiences that transmit opposing viewpoints, many messages communicated during childhood are accepted unquestioningly, and considered to be right and acceptable not only for one’s society, but for all people.

Though as children, we have no control over the ideas that adults wittingly or unknowingly communicate to us, adulthood beckons us to examine our thoughts and beliefs with the aim of expanding our life’s perspectives and maturing in our world view.

It is often argued that women in The Bahamas can be each other’s worst enemy at times.

In so far as this is true, the cause can often be traced to unchecked mindsets that drive negative behaviors toward self and other females.

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is “Choose to Challenge”.

A change in detrimental mindsets internalized by many of the country’s women will not come by chance, but by a choice on the part of women who must identify thought processes that keep them in chains, and work to discard modes of thinking that result in damage to individuals and to the collective.

Challenge toxic religious dogma

The Bahamas is a religious nation, with much of the ideas about the roles and personhood of women being derived from religious dogma.

Many women may not recognize how some of these messages, if personalized, could become subconscious stumbling blocks to formulating a healthy self identity, and to establishing one’s individuality in a world that turns on the ability to convince others of who they should be.

The woman is the first teacher of the child, so the extent to which a woman has personalized ideas about self, is the extent to which she will pass those messages onto her children regardless of gender.

Religious teachings that have as their underlying message the idea that women are the cause of mankind’s fall from grace, tell girls at the earliest ages that there is something inherently bad, wicked or destructive about being a female.

Teachings that promote the idea that women are weak-minded, intellectually inferior, or inferior in personhood to men, fuel misogyny and are used as support for practices and policies that subjugate and deprive women of opportunities for leadership and advancement.

On a psychological level, one ought to consider what it does to young women to be taught that God made a woman in his image, and then determined that her identity is to be established based on her relationship to a man.

On a practical level, these ideas show up in the diminished value women place on their own thoughts, opinions and contributions, and on their right to agitate for what they want and deserve, be it in the workplace, in relationships of all categories, or in organizations including political parties.

They show up in the kinds of career paths and ambitions girls are guided toward and away from.

Among the religious, these ideas also show up in ways in which women are considered inferior depending on when and if they choose to marry, whether or not they are able to “keep a man”, and what a man’s opinion is of their attractiveness or worth.

When women are taught that who they are is contingent upon what a man feels or thinks about them, they are conditioned to stripping themselves of their individuality, living a life of constant emotional upheaval and identity crises as they seek to alter how they show up in the world, in order to please a man.

Most religious leaders will argue that churches do not preach or promote such messages.

But an unspoken message is communicated nonetheless, and when we look at how many religious men and women view gender roles and value, a strong argument can be made for how these messages are both communicated and assimilated.

Challenge toxic femininity

Have you ever heard a woman say that she does not like to keep company with other women because of the drama, negativity and jealousy that invariably leads to problematic encounters?

Everyone who comes to a relationship, be it a familial, friendship, professional or romantic relationship, brings with them the baggage of life experiences, internalized messages about self worth and identity, and suspicions based on what they have been taught to expect of one another.

For women who are often taught to build their identity around someone outside of themselves, there is no wonder all manner of insecurities fill their life’s baggage, resulting in many women being unable to value and appreciate another woman.

This kind of dynamic has little hope of improving if women do not choose to identify areas of hurt, abuse, poor personal choices and counterproductive messaging in their life, that they in turn are projecting onto other women who are also struggling with their own internal storms.

If you have ever had the privilege of encountering the power of true female unity, it is unlike anything else the world has to offer.

But it is a power that is not often experienced, because so many women, particularly in modern capitalistic societies, are too busy fighting against one another than working together to ensure that as many women as possible experience upward mobility.

Much is said about the minimal number of women ascending to leadership positions in political parties and ultimately, in government in recent years.

But the responsibility in this dynamic cannot be placed solely on the shoulders of the men, in what is admittedly still a patriarchal political system.

How many times have women in political parties had the opportunity to support the elevation of another woman in politics, but because of jealousy or the holding of such women to standards well above those for their male counterparts, party women throw their support to the male contenders on a slate?

In the reality that helping one woman to succeed improves the chances for other women to advance, women are letting themselves down.

This also holds true for women who do ascend to leadership posts either in the workplace or in politics, but who fail to provide a hand-up to other women in the field, and who instead seek to punish others for all that she had to endure on her way to the top.

Toxic femininity presents itself as the way in which women obsessively criticize other women over the slightest of perceived flaws, and give silent consent to the subjugation of other women.

Because many women have not achieved healing from rejection and put-downs experienced in childhood and beyond, they cannot bring themselves to celebrate another woman, and often resent the advancement of their own family and friends even in spite of the love they have for them.

It is not the nature of a woman to be toxic, despite what society would have women and men believe.

Schools of thought in both psychology and philosophy posit that all anger stems from hurt.

When women in The Bahamas take the initiative to embark on what can be an uncomfortable yet highly rewarding journey of identifying areas of hurt and assaults on one’s identity and personhood as a woman, they can work to combat toxic femininity. 

It will take more than faith and prayer to root out counterproductive mindsets, and combat them whenever and wherever they appear.

Bahamian women have the power of choice, and if women are to collectively advance, they must choose to challenge.

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source https://thenassauguardian.com/choose-to-challenge/