We Are Warrior Women

Warrior women for today

The world may not be much different now from 6 months ago, but we in the US are experiencing it much differently. Global pandemics have been affecting many of our fellow beings on this planet for years; Black and Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) have been oppressed for centuries. And, warrior women have been leading change from the background and foreground for eons. Waking up to these realities is a gift we are receiving, and we will be wise to make the most of it.

Female Future

I began forming the ideas for this blog when I read the powerful November 2019 issue of National Geographic dedicated to women in the world: Women: A Century of Change. One of my favorite journalists, Michele Norris of former NPR fame, wrote the article “Why the Future Should be Female,” which eloquently described what the world could gain if Warrior Women came out of the background and influenced more of our global direction. She notes that women warriors must learn to be “comfortable with making someone else uncomfortable with their talent and success…the discomfort is not theirs to solve.”

Cultural Change

As an example of what women warriors have been doing in the background, she cites Shonda Rhimes, author of the book The Year of Yes: How to Dance it Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person. Rhimes has produced acclaimed television series with lead characters who are BIPOC, trans and gay. Her positive advocacy and leadership for cultural growth in the US is an example of how women warriors can improve our world.

I am Warrior Woman, I am strong;
The Goddess lives within me.

You are Warrior Woman, strong and true,
The Goddess lives within you too.

We are Warrior Women, we rejoice.
The Goddess is our inner voice.

From Warrior Woman by Carole McWilliams on Seasons: A Pagan Journey Around the Wheel

This song is on our Seasons album in the Lughnassad section. Lughnassad is a holiday for honoring prowess of warriors like Lugh and the women I’m celebrating in this article.

Activism

As I write this, my wife is watching a fabulous documentary about Jane Goodall, who has led the change in our understanding of our animal cousins. She was such a pioneer at a young age that we can scarcely imagine what our world would be like without her. Starting out as a scientist, feeling most at home in the jungle observing chimps, she rose to the call of the warrior woman to be an activist for animals and their welfare, and eventually to climate activism. “We are part of the natural world, as as we destroy the natural world we destroy our own future.”

Goodall says that even in small choices we start moving to a different sort of world. She has been traveling 300 days a year since 1986, which she does not enjoy, to encourage people to make these choices, and to work with young people, especially girls in many countries, on empowering themselves to become women warriors!

Strong and kind, fierce and loving,
Artist, teacher, healer, mother.

We are warriors, we stand tall.
The Goddess is within us all.

Sisterhood

Michele Norris also highlights a recent story of women supporting women, a key elements of women’s warriorship. When women in Hollywood began to organize the Time’s Up movement, to bring to light the persecution they and their sisters in the US entertainment business had been struggling through for decades, a group of women farm workers wrote them a letter, in solidarity with their sisters. In the letter, they ask “Can we rise as sisters across race and class and create a new language together that allows us to celebrate our differences and truly, truly in sisterhood allows us to celebrate our link?”  As Norris puts it, we must be aware that we can persist past the double-standard, in which women who show their power and determination are referred to as something that rhymes with witch!

Witches, bitches, and warriors unite!

Women to Watch

Greta Thunberg, Latifa Ibn Ziaten, Mpayon Loboitong’o, Theresa Kachindamoto, Rebecca Oppenheimer, Elizabeth Pantoren, Alicia Garza, Layla Saad and Emily Cunningham are current Warrior Women worth listening to. We are the leaders for change in our world. Nations with women leaders have done better than other nations in stemming the flow of the Corona Virus. The world needs us more than ever.

Please follow up by looking for inspiration in the stories of these women and their work. They are, like you, the real Wonder Women! And do share inspiration with others as you live your stories and do your work. Plant a tree, walk to the store, support a young girl in her dreams, adopt a panda, write a song, sing down the moon! How do you make a difference?  We are warriors for the Goddess in us all.

Arm in arm we walk together,
The Goddess is within us all,
The Goddess is within us all
The Goddess is within us all.

For the composer’s take on the song Warrior Woman, check out Carole’s post about her song.