No Penis Envy Here

"Of all the nasty outcomes predicted for women's liberation ...

none was more alarming than the suggestion that women would

eventually become just like men."

Barbara Ehrenreich

Equality for women has been a subject matter interlaced throughout my life.  I remember watching my mother struggle and wonder how much happier she might have been if she used not just her exceptional cooking abilities, but her artistic gifts as well.  Prior to her marriage, she was a seamstress with her own business making wedding gowns and women's tailored suites.  That all fell by the wayside and her artistic sketching skills were buried beneath.

My mother suffered from migraines, and one particular day she finally gave in to her pain by lying on the couch.  No sooner had she stretched out, my father came home causing my mother to bolt upright and get busy. (Our home was always immaculate.) This scene became a freeze frame of how I would never be.

I have no desire for a man's physical strength, but indeed I want power over my own life.  I am not attracted to aggressiveness, but I will strive to move forward with assertion.  I need to have power over my own life to decide whether or not to give birth, to raise my children or orchestrate my life as creatively as I wish.  I do not want to be a man ... no penis envy here ... I desire equality for myself and all peoples.  Masculine and feminine working together. each offering strengths, will hold our world together.