I Am Woman – Hear Me Whine?

I Am Woman – Hear Me Whine?

Do you remember the Helen Reddy song, “I am woman hear me roar – in numbers too big to ignore”?

That song got a whole lot of people stirred up when it came out and left me in a quandary with my own gender.

I am a woman.

I am not EVERY woman, I am me.

I am not militant or on a rampage.

In fact, I marvel at the benefits and privileges of being an American woman. Across the globe, women do not experience the same glorious level of freedom and the same confidence that we have to lead a life in tranquility. That is not to say we can expect to live in ease, having our every need met. Hopefully, we know better than that, and we also need to know that our vast liberties are something that other nationalities would die for, and often do.

So I am more than a little peeved at the assumption that because I am an American woman, I think a certain way.

I am tired of being painted with a broad brush and having others put words in my mouth.

The recent Hobby Lobby ruling and the absurd response by Debbie Wasserman Schultz about the “long hand of government, and now the long hand of the law, reaching  into a woman’s body and making decisions for her” is not only ghoulish, it is false.

Help me out here!

Can women still buy any kind of contraceptive that they desire, can they still choose to abort an unwanted pregnancy (God forgive us) at will?

Uh…yeah!

The only thing that was decided is that closely held corporations, moved by their own conscience, will not be required to pay for morning after pills or other abortifacients. This becomes the wild-eyed, hysterical war waged on women? This is what has sent marches and protests and weeping and wailing into the streets?

Please! Stop it!

If there are women out there dense enough to really believe that tripe….I do pity them. This placard-waving, petulant behavior does nothing to empower women or lift them in dignity and honor. Certainly, the purveyors of this propaganda provide no helpful education to assist in clarifying the real issue. No, they are looking to whip up a mob mentality and enflame women to protest the removal of their “rights”. When did having someone else (whether it is government or employer) pay for your personal decisions become a right?

Are we beholden to those who “know better” to provide us with how we will think and what we will receive and how and when and why? Are there capable, intelligent women out there who are incensed by this patronizing clap too?

I want no part of feral feminism.

I would ask my fellow women to stop and think about the current rhetoric that is flying around.

Sift through it carefully.

You will see the desperate and insincere clutching of those who are interested in power – pure political clout – and will cling and grasp in whatever way that they can, making chattel of you, rounding you up and stampeding you wherever they direct.

I love my womanhood.

I cherish the privilege of being a woman.

I know we can think straight and we are not given to panic. Many of us have gone through childbirth, focused and calm. Surely that is a resume enhancer for “can remain calm under pressure”.

So please, speak to me like an adult and get your facts straight before you claim that war has been declared!

I AM woman and, while I do not like to do it, I can roar!


Philippians 2:14-15, New International Version (NIV): “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.”


By Rona Swanson