I Don’t Feel The Need To Do Everything A Man Can Do

I had an immediate and visceral reaction to this viral FB post about femininity from Sarah Vogel. I recognized much of it as truth; my own, anyway. 

I don’t feel the need to be able to do everything a man can do

For while I whole-heartedly believe in the equality of all people, not just of the sexes, and though I am absolutely an advocate for human rights, not just women’s—I don’t feel the need to be able to do everything a man can do, per se.

I need to be able to do everything I was born to do, feel compelled to do, or come to recognize a deep-seated need or desire to do.

I need to not be held back from doing those things solely because I’m female.

I don’t need to do everything a man can do. I need to be respected and treated with love and kindness. I need to be appreciated, valued and not treated as less than another. I need to be safe from harm and not looked down upon for the way I was made.

I don’t need to do everything a man can do.

I need to be partnered with and not used for another’s benefit or pleasure and then discarded.

I need to be listened to and compensated appropriately for the hard work I do. I need to be seen as an asset and an integral part of the team. I need to be rewarded and promoted when I’ve earned as much. I need to be seen as a leader when I am one.

And all this has little to do with the need to be able to do everything a man can do.

Men and women are different, sure. By design. I value and appreciate many of our differences. And I love that we’re not identifying solely as women or men anymore. Thanks to some hard-won gains in liberty for the LGBTQ+IA community, we’re now feeling freer to identify as exactly who we are rather than who we’re expected to be.

We’re a people wholly different across the board—as our unique fingerprints are a testament to—but also similar enough there’s no mistaking that we’re all in this granite-hard but still so worth it life, together.

And thus my hope is to see us all come to the proverbial table to celebrate our individual qualities and abilities more than we try to negate them.

More than we let who we are divide and distance us from honoring each other and working together for good while we’re here.

When Sarah stated, “The world needs more kind, compassionate, humble, faithful, persevering, confident, fierce, bold, pure, and tender-hearted women,” I nodded my head fiercely. The world will always need more of this kind of woman.

As well as this kind of man. And more of this kind of person who’s in between.

I don’t need to do everything a man can do. I need more kind, compassionate, humble, faithful, persevering, confident, fierce, bold, pure, and tender-hearted people to first assert and then behave as though each of us has the right to do, be and achieve according to our unique purpose.

I don’t need to do everything a man can do. I need people to stop believing whole groups of people aren’t up to a task, worthy of equal pay, or C-level material.

I need people to stop reserving love, kindness, camaraderie, and respect just for the folks who are the same as them.

I don’t need to do everything a man can do. I need to be free to be me and I need you to be free to be you—with no penalty for doing so and no spike strips laid in our paths.

I need a lot of things—but some of the things I need the most are to not be told what I need, what I should be, what I am allowed to achieve or the way I should go about it all. But that’s just me. What does your modern-day femininity mean to you?