On Strength

Strength. I was thinking about what strength means to me, and it prompted me to look it up in the thesaurus. What I found surprised me, and yet, not really. Power. Intensity. Force. Might. Potency. Muscle. Vigor. It seems this word has a propensity for being masculine. Yes, I realize women can be powerful, just not as powerful... yet. I say this because men are assumed to have the power, while women truly have to prove they are worthy of it. Women too, can be intense, witness the look in a woman’s eyes when something is out to harm her child. Force, I will concede. The word “brutal” preceding the word, force, comes immediately to mind. Why is that? I hear the word force and I think immediately of goose liver pate, or Adolph Hitler and many other evil men of history, gangbangers, tubes in the stomach of someone too sick to eat, and the militaries’ armed forces. A mother can be forceful too, but, she does it in a kinder way, “Eat all of your dinner, or no dessert.” There's no brute force there.

Might, is another word conjuring up certain pictures in my mind. Religious sermons, which use the phrase, "mighty hand of God", or, the "mighty sword". It's assumed God is masculine, even though there is a movement afoot to make him feminine, even asexual. I wait for a first hand experience to know for sure. When I think of God, a gentle hand is laid on my head, not a mighty forceful one.

The next; potency, is a word meant only for mockery. Based on potent, either you are, or you're not, which is it? If indeed you are not potent (again mostly reserved for the male species) you are impotent. If you‘re impotent, they now have pills, for our men to become “potent,” at least in the visual sense. Notice how men devise the most wonderful pills for themselves, yet can’t make one to make a woman horny for the resulting six hour erection, pill induced? If you're potent, it's up to the man to prove himself. Personally, I find it ridiculous. I believe being potent isn't an erection of the penis, but more a state of mind relating to his efficacy. All the time I hear references by men, to their potency. The thing, which puzzles me, a woman in particular, is this; why is it men talk ceaselessly about the size of their penis? I hear them describe it as; big, long, fat, thin, but always better than average, they think. Rarely do you hear women discuss the size of their vagina, depth or width, nothing, unless of course it deals with childbirth. We don't discuss our vaginas in terms of size. In fact, we're the most virile, we can take large or small, and personally, I've never seen a penis the size of a baby’s head! That sums it up. Well, I've heard men refer to a woman’s vagina as being too loose, but then, considering the amount of space most penises take up, I'm inclined to understand they would feel this way, until they ask you to have a stitch or two taken, “just to make it tighter, you know". I am far more inclined to see potency in a man by the results of his life’s honor. If a man is true to his words, his heart, his beliefs, that to me, is one potent man. Never mind if he has an erection, which can last all night, which is proof only to him, not to me. You're potent if you can get inside of my head first, not my vagina.

Next is muscle, somehow very overrated too. Consider the man who has a disease of the muscles. He has no control whether or not he can lift weights, ride a bicycle, throw a javelin, or even lift his own fork to his mouth. The one thing he can control is how he sees himself. I know un-muscled men who can lift me with their spirit, their wit, their sense of humor. So what if he cannot take out the trash, change a tire, or get an erection? I would take respect, humor, and sensitivity over muscle, it'll far outlast any proteins, which make the muscle, or any trophy collected at Gold’s Gym.

Lastly, I found vigor as a synonym for strength. Vigor; active bodily or mental strength. Again, I seldom hear about women having vigor, but maybe that's because we don't talk about it, we do it! Often, it's a word I don't even hear. Can you remember the last time you heard “vigor” used in a sentence? I guess it takes mental strength. ”I’ll pursue this avenue of interrogation with vigor.” That's when I hear this word used most.

I wonder what would happen, if I looked in the thesaurus under Strength and found the following words: Unfaltering. Childbirth. Willow. Decisive. Instinct. Cry. Forgiving. Resourceful. Pregnant. A woman who has made up her mind is unfaltering. She has the strength of her instincts. Feminine instincts are among the strongest feelings, whether positive or negative. A woman’s faithfulness to her being is sometimes tested, but never ignored.

Childbirth is unique to the female species, save for the snail or some snake, so I suppose it’s not really fair, but then, who said this had to be fair? Speaking of fairness, we get the menstrual cycles too, and all that goes with it, be it cramping, like a case of E-coli after a bad burger, the headaches, the bloating, the inevitable mood swings, and the hunger for chocolate that is fierce. Of course having all of these problems, and the normal ones along with it, are just one way we utilize strength. We are resourceful. Are we out of feminine products? No problem, a wad of paper towels is usually handy, especially if not the cheap, chafing kind. We come to learn about blood letting in the most unforgettable ways, often at a very young age too, which prepares us for our future, our children’ injuries, losing our loved ones in street gun battles, the stupidity of battles of dreamt up wars of men, and even to preparing a dinner from some bloody beef.

Pregnancy is tapping our strengths also, but it allows us time, a real pregnant pause. We are like willows, we can bend to serve the ones we love, even when it hurts, or our instincts tell us better. We are women, we love to please, and have to be forgiving, even to allowing the lover who cannot find our source of pleasure to keep mounting us.

We are laughter too, even if it’s not all heard. Imagine a mirror over the bed and what do you see lying on top of you? A frog. Yes, a naked frog, doing its part to be sexy. We can cry for effect. Tears are the trump card of the woman. Just ask any man. In the end, we are unfaltering in our decisive, forgiving, resourceful ways. We just huff and we puff and let the world go on, his world of strength, while we lay there silent, as the willow who bends in the wind. Fertile or not, fragility is a strength.

Some men think we are shallow, not capable of deep thinking. Maybe it's that men do not dig deeply enough inside themselves to find something worthwhile to say? Strength is silent, a stealth-world of womankind, waiting for a moment in history where it will be appreciated. Oops, in my strengths I have exposed my weakness. Perhaps, the world doesn't wait for me to make history.