How to Take Action to Protect Your Rights As a Woman

How to Take Action to Protect Your Rights As a Woman

What can we do to take back our power and maintain the rights our ancestors worked so hard to achieve? Hint: There’s strength in numbers.

Today I would like to honor and express my gratitude for all the women that came before me; the movers, the shakers, and the instigators of change, so that every woman could live a free and fulfilling life. Some of their names we know and others, we may never know. These women bravely joined forces to stand up against their patriarchal oppressors and demanded equal rights.

The World Would be Saved by the Western Woman

The Dalai Lama said “The world would be saved by the Western woman” in a speech given in 2009 at the Vancouver Peace Summit. And if it wasn’t for these Western women, we may still be living with the long-held belief that a woman is inferior to a man. And let us not forget our Eastern women and every woman in between that is standing up for equality.

Understanding our voice, our own power, and the strength we have in numbers is the first step to change.

Losing and Taking Back Our Power

For centuries, women were worshipped as goddesses in many cultures. As Merlin Stone mentions in his book When God Was A Woman, The control of women began around 2400 BCE when the northern invaders, aka the Aryan race, descended upon the near and middle east and began to snuff out the religion of the Goddess worshipers.

He writes, "The pattern that surfaces in each area in which they make an appearance is that of a group of aggressive warriors, accompanied by a priestly caste of high standing, who initially invaded, conquered, and then ruled the indigenous population of each land they entered."

This ideology of male superiority still exists in many countries and cultures around the world where women have very little to no rights. As women living in a country where freedom is more prevalent, we have the ability to assist women in countries or communities that do not have the freedoms that we enjoy in the Western world.

History of the Feminist Movement in the US

The first wave of feminism began in the late 19th century and lasted until the early 20th century, and at this time they were focused on women's suffrage, or the right to vote. By the time I was born in the early 1970s, the second wave of the feminist movement was well underway. At that time, the feminist movement was addressing a wide range of issues, including reproductive rights, workplace discrimination, and sexual violence.

The third wave of feminism began in the 1990s and emphasized intersectionality or the ways in which gender intersects with other forms of oppression. Examples of intersectionality include gender, caste, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, weight, and physical appearance.

Feminist movements have been ongoing throughout history in various forms, including in non-Western contexts, and continue to evolve and adapt to the challenges of our modern day.

While progress has been made toward gender equality in the United States, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure that all women are able to live without discrimination and barriers. With the recent overturning of Roe V Wade in 2022, we saw how everything could change overnight.

A law that protected and ensured women the right to a safe abortion was overturned by the Supreme Court due to the majority of judges being male religious zealots. This eye-opening historical moment in time serves as a wake-up call for many of us.

Now is not the time to slumber or get distracted by ordinary matters of mundane importance, now more than ever, women need to come together in solidarity with our powerful intentions to continue to make mountains move as one force for positive change.

What Can We Do To Ensure That We Don’t Lose Our Rights As A Woman?

In the book called The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of The Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess, the author Starhawk speaks about the feminist movement:

“The feminist movement is a magical spiritual movement as well as a political movement, It is spiritual because it is addressed to the liberation of the human spirit, to healing our fragmentation, to becoming whole. It is magical because it changes consciousness, it expands our awareness, and gives us a new vision. It is also magic by another definition: “the art of causing change in accordance with will.”

She goes on to express the importance of the circle, “we must return to the circle. The circle is the ecological circle, the circle of interdependence of all living organisms. Civilization must return to harmony with nature. The circle is also the circle of community. Community also implies broader issues of how equitably power, wealth, and opportunities are shared among different groups, and the issues of who cares for the children, the aged, the sick, and the disabled. When the Divine becomes immanent in the world, these are all areas of spiritual concern.

The circle is also the circle of the Self. Our view of the Self, what it is, and in what modes it functions has changed greatly. Feminist spirituality is also an inner journey, a personal vision quest, a process of self-healing and self-exploration.”

Choose to be Silent or to Rise in Solidarity.

The feminist movement goes even further than protecting our rights as a woman. We have the future of our offspring to be concerned about and the collective as a whole. Everything starts within the community that we live in or our circle in the microcosm of this world. We may be faced with important decisions that require working with a group so being open to working with others and seeing it as our circle (of influence) will be an essential part of gaining and maintaining our freedom.

At this critical time in human history, each one of us will be faced with a choice, we can choose to be silent or to rise in solidarity. The Goddess will rise when each one of us does our part to honor the Divine Feminine and bring about balance within ourselves first.

The most effective tool we have is our voices and the ability to take action in raising ecological, and social awareness, making conservation efforts, financial independence and support, and demanding sustainability through the political systems. If we don’t speak up for ourselves and the Earth Goddess and our home, we may risk losing it all under the patriarchal agenda fueled by greed and control.

The feminist movement is one force that has the power to save the world as long as we are actively involved in our processes. If you haven’t already joined the movement, today is a good day to activate this intention for yourself, and remember to pause and give thanks to the women that fought for our rights and continue to do so.

We invite you to join our community of Earth Goddesses rising to their full potential via self-empowerment and hope to inspire you to create your circle in Sisterhood wherever you live. Feel free to check out our upcoming events link if you would like to join us in person.

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