By Tabitha Bozeman
It is March, and Women’s History Month–one of my favorites. I love to review some of my favorite quotes by women I have obsessively read, and revisit their work. Along the way, I remember words that have inspired me and why they did, sharing them as I raise my girls, and a son who is going to be a “girl dad.” Three of the earliest literary quotes that grabbed my imagination and ignited a sense of determination and wonder about being a woman in this world are from Louisa May Alcott, Charlotte Bronte, and Virginia Woolf.
My mother read Little Women to us when I was probably about 10 years old, and I read it so many times on my own that I knew if she tried to skip any pages. I had entire passages memorized, and the March sisters captured my imagination as they dealt with bullies at school, mean adults, difficult family members, and all the painful parts of growing up. Alcott gave me this quote: “Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. I’m so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for.” This quote gave me permission to grow into a full person, not bound by gender expectations, but free to fulfill those expectations while also challenging them if I chose to do so.
The first time I read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, I was in high school. I (of course) fell in love with the setting, the suspense, and the tragic love story. However, it was the sheer will and determination of the main character to unapologetically craft a life and world of her own that really burrowed into my soul. She wanted to love and be loved for who she was, including her mind. Bronte gave me this quote: “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” Birds are one of my favorite creatures, and I love to watch them flying outside, listen to them singing and calling to one another. I think of this quote often when I am outside.
In college, I read the essay “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf, as well as several of her novels. Virginia Woolf argued for equal access for women to education, libraries, time, space of their own, and opportunity to create. She gave me this quote: “Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” The freedom of my mind has been one of my most prized possessions.
I have read the writing of many, many women. I have discovered quotes and passages, stories and poems that have broken my heart, as well as healed it. I have been reminded of the strength of the women around me and of my own power by these writers. They have shared their lives, their loves, their disappointments and their hopes for the future. In doing so, they have encouraged, warned, educated, uplifted, and supported my own journey. In return, I have been able to support and encourage other women in my life.
In a powerful poem, Nikita Gill reminds us to teach our daughters, the younger women coming up behind us, to love themselves, to champion themselves, and not to give up their power–and to teach them by showing them that we love, champion, and challenge ourselves. To remember that we are crafting our own lives, each day, experience by experience:
“Tell your daughters how you love your body. Tell them how they must love theirs. Tell them to be proud of every bit of themselves—from their tiger stripes to the soft flesh of their thighs, whether there is a little of them or a lot, whether freckles cover their face or not, whether their curves are plentiful or slim, whether their hair is thick, curly, straight, long or short.
Tell them how they inherited their ancestors, souls in their smiles, that their eyes carry countries that breathed life into history, that the swing of their hips does not determine their destiny.
Tell them never to listen when bodies are critiqued. Tell them every woman’s body is beautiful because every woman’s soul is unique.”
This March, may we all remember the women who have impacted our lives, encouraged us, and shown us how to craft lives of meaning, growing into complete and full individuals, our minds free, our ambition and talent part of our beauty, and passing on these lessons and reminders to the women around us.
