In Celebration of Women

Happy International Women's Day!

I'm so lucky to be writing that from here.

Where is here? Why is it important to understand?

I'm writing today over super hi-speed internet that is delivered effortlessly to my house for a fee I mostly don't think about. I'm using fantastic computer equipment I bought and paid for out of my own bank account. I'm sitting in my flat that I own, the second home I've owned so far. I have been able to choose to get to this point in my life child-free with access to every medical assistance and procedure that might have entailed. I'm writing what I think down and sending it out into the world.

As one of my prophets, Dr. Maya Angelou said: Your crown has been bought and paid for. Put it on your head."

There is a connection from me to the women of the past in each of these elements of 'here.' Women who fought for financial autonomy to own their own property. Who fought to be able to have bank accounts and credit in their own names. Who fought for the right to work in professions--because we know women have always been working! Women who fought in my countries for the right to control their reproductive destiny, connected so closely to their economic destiny, and to dissociate their value to humanity as purely from the offspring they produce. The women who are fighting for all of us to hear the stories and truths of women--historical, mythological, and current.

I do not have to wait for permission. The debts have been paid. Paid by women like my Grandmothers Annette and Susie who ran their own businesses while raising their children long before there was support or approval, just need. Women like their mothers who bore them out of wedlock and paid horrible prices for it.

So I'm sitting here today in my crown. I am so blessed to be writing to you from here.

My goal on this International Women's Day 2018 is to make sure I'm clearing out more spaces where I find obstruction to sovereignty for the women of the future. To make sure I'm supporting other women, and those who identify as women, finding their own 'here' just as they might like it to look.