Woman. Freedom. Fear. #IWD2024

Bread and roses, bread and roses... 

Advice for a woman wanting to live free in 2024

1. Learn independence early, for it is addictive.
2. Live in the gaps between the stories.
3. Don’t take NO for an answer.
4. Dance in the face of your fear.
5. The only real freedom is freedom from fear.
6. There is no gate, no lock, no bolt, that you can set upon the freedom of your mind.

Then & now

I spent my 'gap' year between high school and university working as a nanny in Grenoble, France. One time, returning from a weekend away, I walked home from the train station after midnight. It was not fun, but walking was the only option. It wasn’t far to the flat; my host family was not responsible for picking me up; and, for some reason, I couldn’t or wouldn’t take a taxi. I made it home without incident and climbed the ancient stone stairs at the back of the building and into the safety of my room and my bed. I was young, just turned 18, and I was fine.

I am considerably older today and there is no way on earth that I would make that trek home from the train station on foot, dragging my suitcase behind me. Today, I know more about the dangers of the world and, today, the world is more dangerous than it was back then; so it seems to me, at any rate. And that seeming — that state of mind — is, if not everything, then a great deal when it comes to danger and fear and managing the two in some kind of equilibrium.

Mind & body 

Much advice is given to women to ensure our safety in the world: Hold your keys between your knuckles. Lock your doors. Keep your drink in sight at all times. Don’t go home with a man you’ve just met. 

None of this advice is about a mindset. It is about guarding against physical danger. Yet many of the ‘inspiring’ quotes about women and freedom I found online speak to freedom in, and of, our mind. 

While I agree that a free mind, an open mind, a courageously working mind is a core and vital form of freedom for a woman, that mindset will not keep any of us free from the fear and reality of rape on the street or violence in our home.

Until we are free from that fear, we cannot ever be truly wholly free.

On this International Women's Day, I wish for our world that 'women' and 'fear' were not a phrase that so readily and so frequently trips off the tongue — and I wish that 'freedom' were more real for more women and female-identified humans everywhere in the world. 

Our lived experience is informed by how the world sees us. We respond to what is reflected back to us.
The fortunate among us stand on firm ground and hold the mirror with a steady hand
as we craft our story over time. 

*** 

Below are the six full quotes from which I took the excerpts that open this post. Knowing who said the words and presenting them in their full context can make them more meaningful, would you agree? Or does the short-hand version above give you enough to inspire your own line of thought about women, freedom and fear? 

1. “Independence is a heady draft, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.” — Maya Angelou
2. “We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edge of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.” — Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
3. “There’s something so special about a woman who dominates in a man’s world. It takes a certain grace, strength, intelligence, fearlessness, and the nerve to never take no for an answer.” — Rihanna
4. “Though we tremble before uncertain futures, may we meet illness, death and adversity with strength. May we dance in the face of our fears.” — Gloria Anzaldúa
5. “The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.”  — Aung San Suu Kyi 
6. "Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt, that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” — Virginia Woolf

Top photo: a Prairie Gentian among Brazier Dogwood (though I see it as a hard-lived rose among brambles) Credit: Willow Rector (used with permission) 

Composite photo of the two women: sources unknown, though credit would be gratefully acknowledged 

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.