My “Declaration of Sentiments”

A couple of days ago, during the Venus Transit, my dear friend Kathleen Hanagan asked me to do a little bit of focused writing to get in touch with my sovereignty at its core. One of the things she asked me was, “What pisses you off?”

Here is my unfiltered response:

1.) Women who say to me, “I can’t afford to…, but I want/need YOU to…” and follow with…”figure out how to pay my mortgage, pay my bills, feed my child, or PAY YOU, but I want or need you to work for free or trade or barter because it’s… what I need you to do so I don’t have to worry about it.”

2. Women ask for a session to work on money or their business, then say to me,”Money isn’t important,” “I hate money,” “I’m happy to let my father/brother/boyfriend/fiance/husband take care of that.”

3. Men who deliberately and systematically disempower women to make themselves feel more powerful.

4. Violence against women, even violence in the language used against women.

5. ANY mythology which vilifies women as part of its ideology.

6. Anti-woman legislation intended to further the project to disenfranchise women under the law, economically and otherwise.

7. Economy based on lack.

Tuesday, something happened in the U.S. Senate which illuminates my big “why.” Or rather, something didn’t happen. The Paycheck Fairness Act failed (of course, along party lines). If passed, it would have amended the Equal Pay Act of 1963, and provided greater protections for women from wage discrimination.

Women now make up more than 50% of the work force. But, all things NOT being equal, a woman can expect to be paid about $10,000 LESS than a male counterpart for almost any professional level job she holds with all other qualifications being equal.

In 1976, when the Equal Rights Amendment failed, I was 8. That little girl I was believed I’d see equal rights for women in my lifetime.  I believed I could do anything, even become president of the United States if I wanted. I could make my own money, and live the life I choose. But the grown woman I am now, after decades of dealing with the reality of being a constitutional minority in my own country, legislatively and economically disenfranchised on the basis of my gender…well, the grown woman I am now is angry.

Can I declare this particular sentiment very clearly? I’ve had it up to my raised eyebrows being marginalized.

When women “got” the right to vote, my great-grandmother hitched her mule to a buckboard wagon and drove around the northeast community in the Okefenokee Swamp and picked up all the women to take them to the courthouse, despite the opposition of their husbands and fathers. There is no way a generation of women with that much pluck would set much store in our CONSENT to allow a non-representative male voice to continue to create second-class citizenship for women systematically by whatever means at their disposal.

Our health, our rights, our ability to earn and spend, our ability to reclaim the sacred feminine are all under attack. We are working harder, and we are not getting “fair value” for our efforts. How is that equal under the law?

In order to be the change we wish to see in the world, we have to cease to CONSENT to participate in economic relationships which cement our less-than status. We must value ourselves enough to ask for money in fair exchange for our work and our gifts. We must invest in ourselves, in our businesses, in our futures. We must declare unacceptable any circumstances which dictate otherwise. We must educate others about our value and our worth in ways that are authentic to us. We must insist on self care and health care, so that we do not feel tired and broken. We must create sustainable relationships based on fairness, not codependency. We must source whatever we need to create viable ways out of the current situation.

We must step fully into our power as the divine feminine leaders we are, declare our sentiments, lend our voices to the dialogue and take the individual actions necessary to change our individual outcomes – and those of our daughters and granddaughters – for the better.

So be it.