Girl's Gone Child: "...strong is what we make each other..."

One of the first articles I clicked on this morning -- on this International Women's Day was this extraordinary collection of photos/stories of female protest worldwide, and as I scrolled through and read the stories of these women, all of whom REFUSED to accept status quo -- who continue to REFUSE... who fight EVERY DAY for their lives and livelihood, I thought of another poem by the remarkable Marge Piercy... about strength in the face of weakness and the power of vulnerability, about what it means today to be a woman and what it has ALWAYS meant to be a girl, about solidarity and camaraderie and the harmony of female voices whose megaphones were pulled from the ribs of every Eve who ever dared refuse an Adam.... About the GLOBAL village and who is doing what to raise whom.

Because in the same way it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to embolden her -- to empower her and elevate her world. And so. Today, and every other day, I salute our international community of women and girls with love and gratitude -- for teaching and raising and risking, and pushing and powering on.

I salute you.

For Strong Women

by: Marge Piercy

(all photos via HuffPo/individually credited.)

A strong woman is a woman who is straining...

PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images

...A strong woman is a woman standing

on tiptoe and lifting a barbell

while trying to sing “Boris Godunov.”

ANTONIO SCORZA/AFP/Getty Images

Ajay Aggarwal/Hindustan Times/Getty Images

...A strong woman is a woman at work

cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,

Nagesh Ohal/India Today Group/Getty Images

ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/GettyImages

...and while she shovels, she talks about

how she doesn’t mind crying, it opens

the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up

develops the stomach muscles, and

she goes on shoveling with tears in her nose.

ARMEND NIMANI/AFP/Getty Images

WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images

A strong woman is a woman in whose head

a voice is repeating, I told you so,

ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,

ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,

why aren’t you feminine, why aren’t

you soft, why aren’t you quiet, why aren’t you dead?

PABLO COZZAGLIO/AFP/Getty Images

STRDEL/AFP/Getty Images

PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images

A strong woman is a woman determined

to do something others are determined

not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom

of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise

a manhole cover with her head, she is trying

to butt her way through a steel wall.

RAVEENDRAN/AFP/Getty Images

JAMAL ARURI/AFP/Getty Images

Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole

to be made say, hurry, you’re so strong.

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

Marcos del Mazo/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to say, and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.