I sat with this month's prompt, Lift Your Voice, for a week, finally commenting to my husband that I wasn't sure what to write about. "That's easy," he said. "You have lots of stories about finding your voice---and how that's been good for you and bad for me." We both laughed, but the truth of his words reminded me how disruptive it can be in our culture for women to own their voice and use it.
As a young girl, I experienced the powerlessness of failed attempts to question roles and rules that empowered boys' voices, while dismissing mine. I can still feel the impact of the look on my father's or brother's or some other man's face when I had the audacity to challenge them instead of quietly submitting. Most often I complied, until a moment when something inside me just couldn't be silent about whatever injustice was unfolding. I would speak with uncharacteristic force, and then feel shocked, hearing the words I spoke. Those words came from an original part of me, before she learned to quiet her voice. Read more of this post
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