We can ask guys to treat us better, but we need to treat each other better.
Hey everyone, I’m Olivia, Olivia S. Benson, and today I wanted to do, I want to do, and I’m gonna do, the last video for this year’s Women’s History Month. I hope that you guys are, especially if you were a male, that you’re not just totally over Women’s History Month and you’re like, “Oh, I’ve had enough of it,” just like Black History Month, “Oh my god, I’ve had enough of it.” It’s actually a really important thing, and if you have a wife, sister, a mother, a grandmother, cousins, I hope that this really means something to you, because the way I look at it is, if I were a man and I knew that I couldn’t be around forever for my daughter or any other family member, I’d want to know that I’m going to leave the world a better place for them.
Certainly if I can’t do anything major, what I want to know is that while I was here, I didn’t make it worse for my female relatives. So I hope this means something to you, and I hope that you are really making your best effort to make the world a better place for women.
Some of my greatest disappointments have come from women
Now, the last video that I did about Women’s History Month, I spoke about the fact that some of my greatest disappointments and betrayals in life, aside from intimate relationships with men, have come from women. And I think it’s a very important thing to consider that women are often very — and I’m going to put it lightly — unkind to each other. Women can be horrific. Women can take other women down really for no reason. They can be unkind for no reason.
I mean, there is a reason in the sense that to some extent we’re kind of programmed to be that way towards each other, because that’s the narrative that’s been passed down from the beginning of time.
This is the backdrop for all of the PR
In fact, in my book, Answers from Within, which is one of the two books that I speak about often, there is a section where I talk about how women have traditionally been described. And it says — this is page 74 — it says: “In the Judeo-Christian biblical story, we get our first clue to the root of the issue. Eve is portrayed as smart, cunning, and manipulative. She tricks Adam into doing something they were not supposed to do. Adam is depicted as not being smart enough to see Eve for who she really is, a temptress. He also is beguiled by her charms. He’s so beguiled by her charms that he’s incapable of seeing beyond her trickery to make his own decision.”
This is the backdrop for all of the PR. Women are manipulative, they’re deceptive, they’re tricky, they’re smart, they’re witty, but in a very evil way. And obviously, if that is the way that they’re painted for men, it’s the same thing between each other.
The healing comes when women treat each other better
And I think that time has come to re-examine that belief system that paints women that way. But the interesting thing about it is that we can ask men to change and to see women differently and to demand rights and all those kinds of things. But the truth of the matter is that, like in any other scenario, the healing comes when women treat each other better.
A free woman can help another free woman. And it’s part of the healing process to include women themselves so that we look at each other differently. I was listening to someone speaking not too long ago, and she said that she was taught not to trust other women.
I can’t say that I was consciously taught that. It’s not something that I have consciously believed. But I can really see how that is totally true, that women are taught, or were taught, not to trust other women based on the initial story of how manipulative and deceptive women are.
And none of that is automatically true. None of that is automatically true. And we see that — I mentioned this in the last video — when you see a man being unfaithful to a woman, and the woman shows up and she is going to have the fight with the other woman, not with the man who has been unfaithful. That is the height of insanity.
Each one of us can pick a little area of life
Now, I know that this is a very challenging time. There’s so much going on in the world, in different arenas. There’s so much. But the thing about it is that each one of us can pick a little area of life and do the best that we can and make a difference.
And with regards to Women’s History Month, all it is is to recognize yourself as a child of the divine, a female expression of the divine, to be kind to other women, and to hold yourself up to a standard where you know that you are here to make a contribution to the world.
And despite the other things that are happening, we still all have a role to play. And that doesn’t stop happening because of all the other distractions. Yes, it’s true. Some of us, we’re just really just trying to hold it together. And that’s one of the reasons why I always say, for the love of God, be kind to people. You just don’t know what is going on.
There’s some women who really, really helped me
And women carry such a high level of responsibility, especially you’re a working woman. Let’s say you have kids, you have a relationship, you have so much. Why not be kind to each other? Why not look out for each other? Why not help each other? Like I said the last time, there’s some women who really, really helped me.
I mean, Laura Corris, Victoria Garrigo, Dolores Ingram, Reverend Dr. Mary Tompkins, Reverend Dr. Sheila McKeithen. These are just some of the ones that really — they weren’t jealous. They weren’t trying to hold me back. They weren’t concerned. They just really helped. And I myself have helped so many others, other women, because I don’t see any reason not to help them.
If I am here, and I intend to make a difference, and I want to see women bring the planet into balance, why not help?
Trust is something that is earned
And it may seem like there’s so much going on out there that you can’t control. That’s fine. You can’t control it. But you can control how you live, and how you treat, and how you interact with other women. Be kind. Trust is something that is earned.
And it doesn’t automatically mean that you are going to trust every woman. But it certainly doesn’t mean that you are going to take the position that you don’t trust women, because that’s the narrative that was passed down.
I’m Olivia S. Benson, and the book that I’m talking about is Answers from Within, A Spiritual Guide to Finding Answers to Work-Life Issues. It’s available on Amazon.
We gotta do better. We can ask guys to treat us better, but we need to treat each other better. Love your sisters. Love your sisters. And we can make the world a better place.