Bad Ass

Girlfriends

I talk a lot about my girlfriends.  About how they get me through the day.  How they get me through the hard times.  How they are always there to celebrate victories.  I always talk about them.  As I try to find my voice and my path, I realize that my girlfriends are a predominant theme in my inner peas.   I talk about them because my girlfriends have saved my life.  Repeatedly.  But I just realized that I only talk about why I NEED them in my life.  I never really talk about why I WANT them in my life.  I should probably mention that.  It’s a pretty big deal.  They do so much for me and I tend to only thank them when they save my sorry ass from some crisis or mishap.  They deserve better than that.  They need to know why they are so fucking amazing. 

thisbitchisfuckincrazy - A history of female friendship

The past couple of generations have proved that it’s really hard to be a woman with a voice.  Maybe even harder than our mothers and grandmothers had it when they were in the thick of fighting for gender equality.  At least our predecessors had the benefit of a female alliance.  When the suffragettes were fighting for a woman’s right to vote, they had a common ground.  Later, when women fought for equality in the workplace, and equal wages to men, there was a connection.  However, after the work of those women was extinguished, they left the following generations how to figure out how to deal with more dichotomous issues.  Issues like getting along with each other.  Issues like putting petty differences aside.  Issues like the insecurity that comes with trying to be independently successful while comparing yours to the successes of others.  It’s that comparison that created a culture of women who were nasty and hateful and spineless and ugly.  Essentially, it was the work of our mothers’ generation that made us feel the need to make life a competition.  Once the allegiance to the cause dissipated, we were left with a need to prove ourselves against our sisters.  And that’s where it started. 

As little girls, we were taught to be smarter, prettier, more athletic, have a better boyfriend.  That’s what women’s rights did to us.  It only made us more inclined to look at other women and berate them for not being as successful as we are.  Or, conversely, it made us look at other women and pine for what they had and we did not.  And women tend to be real hateful when they feel insecure.  They also tend to band together.  They will call names.  They will make judgments.  But, make no mistake, there is no unity.  The first woman who walks a different path, or speaks her own mind, will be the next to suffer the wrath of the sisterhood. 

That’s how we grew up.  Calling each other names.  Talking shit.  Back-dooring each other, in an effort to make ourselves look better.  If it could give us the upper hand with a friendship, or a job or a relationship, we would throw our girlfriends to the wolves.  We’d say “That bitch is fucking crazy.” 

badassbitches

So for a very long time, I sheltered myself from the friendship of other women.  I opted to go it alone, so that I didn’t have to fear the wrath of upsetting the community, and having to suffer their punishment for not conforming.  I viewed other women as the enemy.  For a very long time, I lived like that.  Then, one day, I realized that they weren’t the enemy.   I realized that we were finally growing up. We are finally using each other for what we should be.  We are using each other for support.  We are using each other for relief.  We are using each other for inspiration.  And that’s why I WANT my girlfriends in my life.  I want them because they are honest.  I want them because they are fighters.  I want them because they are smart and funny and pretty.  I want them because they aren’t perfect, to themselves, but they are perfect to me.  I want them because they put up the most amazing fight to improve what they have.  I want these women in my life because they are survivors.  They have survived childbirth.  They have survived parenting.  They have survived the desire for those things, yet being robbed of them.  They have survived loss.  They have survived defeat.  They have survived bullies.  They have survived abuse.  They have survived judgment.  But they have embraced their survival, not only as success, but also as a contribution to the greater good.  They have survived on their own, but they never had to do it alone for one second.  That’s why I want these incredible women in my life. 

It’s cliché, but I would be nothing without these women.  NOTHING.  Yes, I could do it all by myself.  Yes, they could do it all by themselves.  But we are so much better together.  Of course, I need them.  I flatter myself and think that they need me too.  But what’s most important is that I WANT them in my life.   It’s purely selfish.  But I want them in my life because they are proof that there are no weak links, but rather that every link serves as a different purpose.   No chain could function if there was only one link.  Together we are all strong.  Together we are all pretty bad ass. 

-Inner Peas