Good morning beloved reader,
I’m often struck by the conditioning we receive growing up in the west that encourages us to hand over our authority to an outside — often patriarchal — figure. In the past, that may have been to a doctor, a lawyer, a banker, a priest, a spiritual teacher, the list goes on. This is not to say that I do not value the expertise of an individual in their given field. I do. I deeply value excellence or mastery in any given field or practice.
But there is a difference between handing over responsibility to an outside “authority,” versus listening to that person’s expertise and learning from them, while still trusting my own inner-authority, inner-divinity and my own experience in knowing what is best for me, i.e. maintaining connection with my own agency and sovereignty.
I believe more and more people — especially women — are waking up to the importance of trusting our own inner-authority, and this is part of the movement of the Rising and Re-claiming of the Divine Feminine: a process that has been going on all over the world for quite some time now.
Sometimes I wonder if this may be connected with the fact that so many women are becoming authors these days, and recognizing “author” is the first part of the word author-ity. And what drives our human experience more than stories? And women write and focus on different stories from men.
A friend shared an article with me from a news organization called The 19th*. Their mission:
A century ago, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution made voting, our country’s most fundamental mode of civic participation, a right regardless of gender. But this watershed moment in our democracy excluded millions of women, particularly women of color, from the ballot box for generations. And the reality is suffrage remains a work in progress for many in this country, particularly people living in states where voter suppression exists and tens of thousands of transgender Americans who face barriers to voting.
Today, women make up more than half of the American electorate and are more engaged than ever in our politics — marching on state capitols, voting at higher rates than men, and running for local office and seeking the presidency in record numbers. Yet they remain underrepresented in government and in the nation’s executive ranks. Women and LGBTQ+ people are also underrepresented in politics and policy journalism and in newsroom leadership, which influences what stories are told, how the news is covered and whose voices are elevated. (bolding by me)
…In short: The 19th Amendment remains unfinished business, a fact we acknowledge in our logo with an asterisk — a visible reminder of those who have been omitted from our democracy.
I was fascinated to also learn on their mission page that the number of women who voted in 2020 was 82.7 million. Nearly 10 million more than men!
And this is the article my friend shared from The 19th*: These are the climate grannies. They’ll do whatever it takes to protect their grandchildren.
“Older people are three times as likely to list climate as a top priority than middle-aged people. On top of that, women in all age groups are more likely to care about climate than men,” he said. “So you put those two things together … and you can safely say that grandma is much more likely to be a climate voter than your middle-aged man.”
Go the Climate Grannies!
I love this so much, Camilla! It feels so hopeful. Thank you for sharing about the climate grannies! ♥️♥️♥️
Great post, Camilla.
I’ve had a few injuries where doctors told me surgery was needed to heal the issues, but that just didn’t feel right to me, and while I didn’t know any better and thought I should trust the doctors expertise — I couldn’t do it. In the end, I sought alternate methods of healing — and learnt a whole bunch about how to take care of my body in the process — and I never got any surgeries and I am all healed up and not having issues anymore.
All that to say, I agree with your idea about trusting ourselves and not handing over authority to others.