The earliest emotion I can remember having is anger. Born in the early 1960’s, I had parents that were born in the 1930’s, an age where men and women’s roles were distinctly defined and those roles were upheld in legislation and in religious communities. 

Then came me, defiant, and determined. My poor mom wondered why I was so angry all the time. As I reflect now, she was also angry in an era where women couldn’t own a credit card, and at 18 she was told she was too young to work, however, old enough to get married. 

At the age of 3, I began my lifetime of warring against the myths of: little girls should sit and be pretty and not climb trees, however, I would regularly & proudly enter the house after Sunday school with bloody, grass-stained knees. I was too young yet to know the symbol for “F” “U”. However, my very behaviour said it loud and clear. I was not going to stand for boys having all the fun. So of course I was angry. 

And the myths just keep coming (pun intended): I should have been born a boy, just because I was assertive & athletic; good girls don’t, talk back, swear, or have sex without being married, or masturbate, or fantasize about sex. Oh yes, girls and woman are only good for two things: fucking and reproduction. The 13-year-old male kid who made that remark followed it with a two-hand slashing me with his hockey stick and I returned the favour (both of us raging).

The most bazaar myth was that it was a sin to even think about masturbation let alone performing masturbation. This constant negative barrage did leave more than a few dents in my sexual development and sexuality. It sure didn’t make me excited about developing breasts and menstruation at the age of 13. I was raging and have been raging for a very long time about the cost of being female. I was excluded from sports, name called, and beat up for being better than my male peers. So of course I wanted to be a boy. I didn’t know at the time, what I really wanted was to be treated with respect as a fellow human being and allowed a nonjudgmental opportunity to explore who I would become/wanted to be as a girl/ woman without the constant barrage of “NO You Can’t, NO You Shouldn’t, No You Won’t and No You Don’t” because my behaviors and thinking were considered more male like.

 I think at times being a smart athletic girl, shamed the males around me. I think the toughest thing was being teased by girls, calling me a lesbian because I played with the boys.  This makes no sense and never did; however, it enraged me. I was in no person’s land: despised by girls and not a boy. So, there it was. 

Pushing Back

I have spent a lifetime pushing back: participating in what had been considered male sports (hockey, white water kayaking), being one of 3 women in my forestry classes, 1 of 2 women in a hard rock mining course, not because I was on any kind of a crusade. I just wanted to do the things I loved: being outdoors and playing sports.  

My rage didn’t start to dissipate until I read a paper by Mariah Moser, that rage and shame can get coupled together.  Shame is a sense of not being good enough/being in a supreme deficit as a human being. When the shame would get triggered like when I would miss a kayak roll (it wasn’t just that I missed a roll like others would sense it). It was an example of me being a failure as a human being (intense shame) that was so intolerable I would ricochet off the shame into a rage. This explained a lot of my raging over the years, having to contend with the shame I felt of being the kind of girl/woman that I am. I don’t fit the traditional model. Once I could uncouple the shame from the rage (this took time and effort). I could recognize I was in shame and label it. So, less and less I rage and I have more clarity, calmness and confidence of who I am.  

So now at 61, I give kind eyes to my younger parts who suffered so much confusion, shame and pain, yet, I recognize now as a matriarch, that all humans pass through the dark night of the soul and I am not a victim.  I am proud of how I have shown up in the world and been a part of advancing girls & women’s opportunities in sport, in careers, wage parity and embarrassing their self pleasure. So now when I find myself in shame and rage, I remind myself THAT WAS, THEN & THIS IS NOW. 

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