Judith Klemos

“Empowering Women” is big business right now. Or at least it is in my circles. I can’t scroll through Facebook without an add or a post from someone who describes their work as ’empowering women’.

These people seem to have successful businesses doing it. I say seem because who knows what is real. Anyone can say anything in their own advertising. Damn, you can even write your own testimonials. People are notorious for test driving fancy cars through fancy neighborhoods, taking a photo and presenting it as if it were their own manifestation. Yes, if you are paying attention, I am a little jaded – pun intended – on my own industry right about now. Because I don’t like tactics, or facades. I like real and authentic. But that’s another topic.

I do not and will not ever say I empower women. Women -actually, everyone – are born empowered. That Light that makes you alive is power. You always have it. You can’t lose it and I can’t give it to you. I can’t even do a ceremonial ritual to activate it in you. The very best I can do is ENABLE you to access it, because someone else DISABLED your access to it, prior. Honestly, all that disabling was an illusion anyway, so I’m really just pulling back the curtain. Its easier when you have the right tools, and I’ve been collecting them for a long time now.

What I’ve noticed lately in this empowerment culture, is a call to Sisterhood. What I’ve also noticed is that it is Sisterhoods run like The Boy’s Club. It is sisterhood as long as some one is doing poorly and those in power (hierarchy) can feel good about themselves lending a hand up.

Have you noticed that in a group of women when one puts herself down, makes herself small and criticizes herself, all the other women rally around and tell her how beautiful she is, how amazing she is, how much she has to offer and that she needs to find her voice to speak her truth?

Have you also noticed that, in that same group of women, when one who’s found her voice, speaks her truth compassionately, lends her educated opinion intelligently and offers to share her gifts generously, that same group of women put her ‘in her place’ and tear her down – telling her she is full of herself, opinionated, self-promoting and self-serving? “Polite” people will call her intimidating. (I’m not talking about those who practice the ‘fake it til you make it’ protocol. That is overcompensation, not authentic and not at all what I’m referencing here.)

I’ve watched it now, specifically for 6 months in various formats. So often I see women eager to raise up others they perceive to be beneath them, and tear down other women they perceive to be above them. Even more so, I see women aggressively tear down those they might feel are equal to them, because they see them as direct competition.

This is the Old Boy’s Club paradigm at work. They have divided us first from men, then from each other by race, religion and socioeconomic status. How smart that Boy’s Club is! We do all their dirty work for them! We take each other out for the smallest crumbs at the table. All they have to do then is take out the few that rise above the culling of the herd.

We have become our own worst enemy at exactly the worst time.

This world needs the Divine Feminine more than ever, but we have disabled ourselves. We have turned on each other and made it so we would each prefer to side with men, because at least there we know where we stand. We know what to expect. We know that we will be insulted to our face, not stabbed in the back. (And I think subconsciously, we think that is the path to power.)

Ever wonder why a woman would side with a man against all reason? Why when he treats her so poorly, she will stand with him against other women? Because of the Boy’s Club mentality. It is what has women support someone who openly admits that his power allows him to grab women by the pussy, and that those women think they are special because of it. It is why we immediately question a female victim’s motives, rather than supporting her in telling her story.

Like I said, the Boys did their jobs well.

It starts early and never seems to end. I experienced sexual harassment from a gang of girls in the sixth grade. My own mother threw me out of the house when she found out I’d reported my college teacher for sexual harassment. I experienced a gang of women chiding and making fun of me after I reported having been trapped in an office by a male co-worker unknown to me who made sexual references.

Have you seen this video circulating on Facebook?

You.

Must.

Watch.

We have too much been told we are too much. We have too much been dimmed. We have too much wounded one another in the race to the top of the pyramid. Enough!

Enough of the school yard bullying. Enough of the board room bullying. Enough! If you are a woman than your first inclination towards another woman needs to be kindness not competition. Boys have pit us against one another for far too long…since grade school for many of us. Enough.

I see so many women calling themselves warriors, boss bitches and even some who call themselves ‘spiritual gangsters’. This is not the way to embrace and honor the Divine Feminine! These are all men’s pants that women are putting on! We need to be the gentler strength. We need to be Queens and Goddesses! We need to be Maids, Mothers and Crones!! We need to embrace the strong woman archetypes of all variations, not just the ones that exhibit Divine Masculine.

We need to ‘beat’ them at our game, not try to play theirs. I just watched the most heart wrenching video of one of the most heroic women I have ever heard of. She isn’t a politician. She isn’t telling her ‘me too’ story. She hasn’t gone to the board room and declared war.

She was held captive and beaten for two days by her boyfriend, before she convinced him to take her and her dog to the veterinarian’s clinic. She then got out of eyesight of her boyfriend, wrote a note and slipped it to a tech behind the desk. In the note she states that she’s being threatened and her boyfriend has a gun. The staff went into action, put them in an isolated room and called the police without alerting anyone. The arrest was made smoothly without incident to her. Then she broke down while she displayed her bruises.

If you haven’t seen it, watch it here

It’s heart breaking but makes me so proud to be a woman. Never give up.

One woman had told her story in front of the nation and faced her accused abuser. I believe 100% of women need to support her, but I am shocked to find that not so. I do not understand.

And then today I see a video of a white woman who, without cause, barred a black gentleman from entering his own apartment building. And then I saw a post by a black woman who was reported to security and the police by a white man as she was going through her own trunk.

Underlying premise…people of color cannot have nice things.

What does that have to do with empowering women? 1) What if the roles had been reversed?  What if he had done that to her? And if she truly thought he didn’t belong why did she willingly lock herself into a confined space with him? 2) That white male…would he have called the police if he’d seen that black woman being raped instead of rummaging in her trunk? Or would he have chosen ‘not to get involved’?

I do not understand the society mindset today.

Women. We need to have each other’s backs and we need to not become douchebags and call it ‘asserting ourselves’.

Let’s be better.

I love you. I do. But some days…..

~Jade