D.H. Lawrence (1917) wrote: Man is willing to accept woman as an equal, as a man in a skirt, as an angel, a devil, a baby face, a machine, an instrument, a bosom, a womb, a pair of legs, a servant, an encyclopedia, an ideal or an obscenity: the only thing he won’t accept her as is a human being of the female sex.
Once I became aware that I was going to grow up to be a woman I wanted to know what that meant. The Mid-West farm women around me, while they were steady and steadfast, did not model for me anything that I wanted to join or follow. I could not help but notice the interchangeability of everyone, as if they were all cut from the same fabric. Their lives did not seem rich at all but dull and identical year after year. I knew at an early age that I wanted more. I wanted my life to be abundant with a bountiful female experience. I sensed there was more than I was seeing, but I didn’t know what it could be. It wasn’t until I went out into the world and got a broader view of life that my dreams began to take shape.
One of the first things I encountered was a clearer picture of society’s expectations of women and how limitations have been embedded in our consciousness for generations. Fortunately, I became a woman at an amazing time in history when women were waking up and collectively reaching out for more. Feminist thought was encouraging us to listen as we recounted our own experiences. We were learning from what we heard rather than prejudging our issues by already having a theoretical framework that spelled out what we were “supposed” to be. We were beginning to focus on the individuality of our stories rather than some universal applicable truth for all women.
This move away from viewing all women as “the same” gave us a much wider spectrum to explore our uniqueness. It brought a new value to our sense of self and encouraged self-seeking as a way to get to know and express our authentic selves.
When we began to own our unique individuality, a change in consciousness was created. This had a profound effect on all people, men and women alike. It drew us into a changing paradigm of thinking and being. The new pattern began to fragment the bonds of conformity and isolation that had been dominated by Patriarchy for thousands of years.
This changing consciousness, which encouraged us to know ourselves better and stop the feeling of being alone that had kept us so isolated, had a strong impact on our interfemale relationships. Women came together in an exploratory frame of mind, open to new possibilities about each other. The connections this offered gave us support and reflection. The insights of women’s groups throughout the world pointed to the need for internal change, growth, and healing. The internal concepts women had of themselves lagged behind the progress that was being achieved in our external world.
The issues that had been fought by marches in the streets and voiced through political debates were also being fought in the psyche of each individual woman. To resolve the dilemmas of a legacy of inequality, the victory needed to be gained at all levels of psychic understanding. Building a strong sense of self through changing our beliefs was necessary to live a full and satisfying female experience in a male dominated external world.
In 1982 Dale Spender, in her angry writings said: “ I have come to accept that our society depends on the experience and values of males being perceived as the only valid frame of reference and it is therefore in the interests of men to actively prevent women from collecting, sharing and asserting their own equally real, valid but different frame of reference.”
It was becoming imperative to discover our own point of reference, honor our experiences and view our perceptions as valid. There were many things that women began to examine to make the internal changes necessary to develop, nurture, and live confidently in the world.
The three greatest complaints I have heard from women are that they feel they are invisible, that they do not feel heard and that they feel they are totally forgotten. Women’s desires about making a worthwhile contribution to our culture are deeply entrenched in these beliefs. If these are maintained, any woman who attempts to make contributions to the culture has to have their contributions, and often themselves too, denied. This invisibility and being forgotten is one of the problems we face when it comes to having role models to show us the way.
When I was young there were no women in my life that I could find that exemplified the kind of ambitious spirit I brought to the world. History showered us with men who were honored for their contributions, but there was only a smattering of women to follow. At last, through literature I began to find examples of women who, through their writing, shared the experience of a rich female experience.
Aphra Behn was one of the earliest women I discovered. Virginia Woolf (1928) said of this woman: “all women together should let flowers fall on the tomb of Aphra Behn…for it was she who earned them the rights to speak their minds.”
Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was a prolific dramatist of the Restoration and the first English woman writer to make her living with her trade. Her writing was controversial and was often considered scandalous for the time because she addressed women’s emancipation, their sexual pleasure, abuse and nature.
After a hiatus in the 19th Century, when both she and her work were dismissed as indecent, she was rediscovered. As she has come back into visibility, people began to take more notice of what she actually wrote, as opposed to just her career. She was reportedly bisexual and, from her writing, held a stronger attraction to women than to men, a fact that has made feminists enthusiastic to learn more about her.
Having women role models enlivened history for me. It helps me better comprehend issues that women had faced within the context of the time and social climate in which they lived. Being able to read women’s stories helped me better understand the issues that have and still impact us.
When we are exposed to the historical and social context of other women and their lives, we start to understand the limitations and challenges of their experiences. This helps us grasp on a deeper inner level the issues we are dealing with now. Learning about the female experience empowers us in our internal and external lives, our careers and our relationships. By examining this, we will advance further in understanding our own experiences. We must make ourselves visible in our truth, listen to each other and ourselves and remember our sisters, like Aphra Behn, who have walked before us on our path to wholeness.
