I call it, solidarity

When I left my affluent suburban neighborhood six years ago for the streets of Westwood, California and the halls of UCLA, I was a young woman of many convictions. I had been raised to believe that I was intelligent, insightful and full of opinions that deserved to be heard. A walking wounded soldier of ongoing domestic warfare and witness to the complete collapse of everything I knew about what it meant to be me, I considered myself more aware of the world around me than my college-going counterparts. Among the core of infallible truths that I held most dearly was a set of ideas about the nature of female interaction, character and relationships. Essentially, these ideas linked together to form a philosophy that categorized women as conniving, shallow, duplicitous, and otherwise the source of angst and insecurity in my life.

In terms of the way I learned to formulate my convictions, I had plenty of evidence to support my indictment of women. At 18, I had been subjected to my share of female-generated pettiness, jealousy and alienation. I grew up in a community where when I was no more than eight or nine years old, the adult mothers of my young female friends called my house to accuse me of being "exclusive", "bratty" and/or "cliquey" to their children or others. I can remember more than one occasion when I was reduced to tears, pleading my innocence to a middle-aged woman. I endured junior high and high school at the mercy of the social hierarchies determined by wealthy pseudo-adults with trust-fund bank accounts, supermodel bodies and the image and apparel of the pop music industry. Really, there was no hope for any of us who suffered from a deep socialization of tv, movies, our mothers and eachother, that indicated, almost unilaterally, that women were untrustworthy, self-interested and inherently committed to doing evil in the world. Even in my overly-evolved state of cynicism and criticism, I both endured and perpetrated shattered friendships, socially condemning gossip and a general struggle to strike a balance between survival and inclusion in a bubbled world of privilege, over-indulgence and low self-esteem.

Determined to shed the weight and wounds of my adolescence, I set out for a personal, social and emotional change in college. In my first two weeks, I made about fifty or so new friends (as any socially active UC freshman can verify), almost none of whom, were women. I felt empowered and enlightened by my new lifestyle, convinced I had put a definitive end to everything that had made me miserable since the first grade. And while as my college-life normalized into a predictable routine and I managed to develop relationships with several women, I held on to the fundamental belief system that condemned women as the source of my social suffering, for the next couple of years.

According to my mom, and every formulaic romantic movie on the planet, everyone, at some point or another, endures their first, devastating heartbreak. Mine was courtesy of a man who came into my life concurrently with critical consciousness and the dawn of my twenties, and left it in emotional shambles. It was one of those experiences that makes you wonder why every image you've seen since you left the womb encourages and validates heterosexual monogamy. I was devastated, and even worse, had lost sight of any semblance of my personal self-worth or identity. In the months that followed, I set-forth to recover, and without any conscious commitment to it, discovered myself as a woman, and the meaning of womanhood all around me.

It was in the pursuit of sanity and autonomy that I came to both understand and appreciate the power and significance of female friendship. Determined to stay away from men romantically, and disillusioned by the absence of meaningful support (not to mention the self-interested pursuit of sleeping with me) demonstrated by my male friends, I began to realize the therapeutic and progressive benefits of surrounding myself with compassionate, understanding women. Initially I was comforted by the unconditional, non-judgmental sympathy of the women around me who all seemed to relate to my vulnerability and insecurity. When I felt ridiculous, immature and overly-emotional, my female friends assured me that I was justified, rational and sane. When I questioned everything, they were there with answers about how amazing and resilient I was. It was authentic, purely motivated love and kindness, and for the first time in my life, I took a long, critical look at the values that had shaped my relationships with women my entire life.

The days of tears and mournful reflection about the loss of great love, articulated over the soundtrack to Waiting to Exhale, turned into hours of righteous dialogue about female liberation. We reveled in the sanctity of singlehood and wrote our collective story of triumph to the tune of "I Will Survive."

Nostalgic karaoke anthems aside, something miraculous emerged from all of those 4 hour restaurant dinners, women-only movie nights and requests to club DJs for "Real Love" by Mary J. Blige. Amidst the shared stories of boyfriend-generated angst and relationship resilience came other conversations about our distinctly female lives. We discovered the parallels of what it meant to grow up as girls across race, class and geographic lines; we found social and gendered meaning in our daily lives, and we situated ourselves as young, educated women in a diverse and inequitable world. Somewhere between turning 21 and the start of my journey toward adulthood, I had a revelation: women of all ages, backgrounds and identities could benefit from a little female unity. I call it, solidarity. And as it turns out, there's considerably more to it than an aid in resurrection from a broken heart.

I don't know who started the rumor, but somewhere along the way (particularly in the community where I grew up), women learned it was safer to hate eachother than risk being betrayed by other women. Popular culture hasn't done anything to help dismantle this myth, and infact, seems to be increasingly dominated by media-generated images of women who occupy a narrow social space. That space is dominated by hyper-dramatic moments of rage, jealousy and inter-female competition. I remember the first episode I came across of MTV's latest installment of The Real World. I was horrified by the one-dimensional portrayal of the women on the show as shallow, manipulative and ultimately determined to destroy eachother. Unfortunately, the trend in imagery is not limited in reach to the overly-dramatized realm of reality TV shows, but rather it infiltrates almost every aspect of mainstream entertainment. It is no secret that media both creates and reflects our identities, our interactions and our social behaviors. Women of all ages are witnessing images of themselves pitted against eachother in pursuit of everything from good grades and attention from men, to social status and economic success. The product of this tension is a divisive and degenerative force that reinforces all types of patriarchy and oppression.

So, I promote solidarity as a means by which the media and other institutions that function to divide the female population can be interrogated, challenged and changed. I promote solidarity as a means by which young women, old women, all women, can learn from eachother rather than all of the male-dominated, male produced, male-serving information they get exposure to in so many aspects of their lives. Solidarity means women standing against domestic violence, sexual assault and discrimination as a collective, imposing, unwavering force. Solidarity means women collaborating to form educational, business and child-rearing partnerships and communities to counteract the ways in which they are marginalized and limited by long-standing sources of gender inequity.

A commitment to solidarity begins with becoming a woman who is compassionate and understanding of other women, and critical of the systems that teach us to judge, instead of support, and evaluate, instead of listen to eachother. Women can learn to make conscious choices that serve themselves and other women to the higher purpose of social progress and self-respect. Women can engage eachother in honest dialogue that encourages self-reflection and introspection. This serves to prevent the endless cycle of females who support eachother through self-destructive patterns of decision making because it is culturally acceptable to provide favorable insight in lieu of a more critical truth. Case in point: if you know one of your woman-friends is being screwed over by her boss, a man or her real estate broker, it's time to step up and let her know. Women can transgress normalized expectations by validating eachother's bodies, appearances, personal style and professional achievements. Women can question the systems that produce certain behaviors, clothing choices and attitudes rather than condemning the individuals that express them. And in doing these things, women participate in the betterment of not only their lives, but their daughter's lives, grand-daughter's lives, etc.

While I was late in arriving to destination: solidarity, I have never been more convinced of the importance of fostering female unity at an early age. Working with young people from diverse ages and backgrounds, I have endured painful trips through my childhood as I've witnessed the interactions of young women that so vividly reflect my own experiences. Giving girls the opportunity to experience the power of female friendship (that I ultimately discovered) is potentially transformative. It is a foundation for new generations of young women to be empowered by a mission of equality, who can pursue justice together and who through eachother, can better understand their own female identity.
I call it solidarity: my feminist agenda, my personal commitment and my invitation to women to join in something greater than themselves.