Oh boy… hasn’t 2020 been crazy?
I started strong. I got engaged, got myself in therapy and started going deeper in my faith.
And then a pandemic. And then protests for the right to open the economy back up. And then the national fight for the equality of races.
It’s been wild. And it’s never been the right time to launch a blog about anything other than the seriousness that has been going on around us.
Am I alone in this? I have a feeling that I’m not!
I wanted to be sensitive to the priorities that were going on in the world. But also fair, honest. I felt that compared to other issues that were going on, talking about femininity, leadership and relationships wasn’t the priority.
But I’ve had these conversations in my heart for years. For two years I talked about female empowerment in Spanish with my podcast De Vinos y Otros Cuentos.
The thing is… I’ve changed A LOT. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still passionate about justice, truth and I’m a little idealistic about “women being drivers of change to create a better world”.
However, my perspective has changed. While I feel proud about the job that I did with De Vinos y Otros Cuentos, it was time to let it go.
*cue Elsa singing*
At first I felt like a failure. But now I see that it’s okay. A different approach needed a complete new home, which is what I want to create now.
For some background, I know it sounds cliche, but I truly love justice. I love truth. I love growth.
So naturally, a few years ago, when I really understood what feminism and female empowerment stood for, I became a true supporter of the feminist movement.
If you want to listen to that story in more detail, make sure to listen to the trailer episode of the podcast.
I knowww that this whole topic can sound a little complicated. But I promise, it’s not.
My breakup with Female Empowernet was clean, but as with every relationship, we still had our backs and forths.
As we revisit this story, today we’ll be talking about:
- What feminism and female empowerment really mean.
- My honeymoon stage with female empowerment.
- When I accepted that our relationship wasn’t going to work.
- My reconciliation with the word “power”.
- A new journey of embracing true feminine power.
P.S. this post may contain affiliate links. This means that if you click through and purchase something, I may receive a portion of the price. It’s at no extra cost to you, but the profits go directly back into improving this blog!
Quick background on Feminism and Female Empowerment
Everyone and their mother uses these terms for virtually anything. So much so, that it has kinda lost its meaning. It’s one of those “buzzwords” that can mean everything and anything at the same time.
Which is why we first need to define feminism and female empowerment:
Feminism
At its core is about equality of men and women, not “sameness.”
Because women and men, scientifically, are clearly not the same, but we can have equal rights. From this definition, a movement was created.
Female empowerment
This is a term that comes from the feminist movement and it became really strong in the 80s.
I don’t wanna go into the full story on this post, but in short, it’s the equal distribution of power: whether it’s social, political, or economical.
It sounds right, doesn’t it? Even to this day I believe in having the right, as women, to choose and to access opportunities.
From everything I’ve read and studied, I’ve realized that you can approach this topic externally or internally (and btw, this is my personal classification, nothing “academically official” about this).
Externally, it talks about policies and macro initiatives. It includes legislation like giving women the right to vote.
Internally, it goes to the micro level, and it’s about the personal choices we make, what we believe we’re capable of, and how we approach those opportunities that have been given to us.
So even though I LOVE everything that has been done externally throughout history, my focus has been the internal aspect.
My Journey With Female Empowerment
I became passionate about it for the first time when I read the book Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO. It was a very controversial book, but I loved how she showed that yes, women are facing thousands of challenges, and our insecurities and imposter syndrome are the main things holding us down.
So I became Super Woman. I started following a lot of feminists with great messages.
At the time, I wasn’t feeling fulfilled or purposeful, and I thought that it was either because of not having enough opportunities as a woman, or because I didn’t lean into my own power enough.
Did you notice? There comes the word power again.
At the time I thought: maybe if I work harder, scream louder, learn to love my body and show it to the world… maybe then I’ll be really empowered.
And I did it. I was empowered. On the outside, I was a role model.
Inside? I still felt empty, insecure, trying to prove myself. I started to question all the messages I saw about:
- “Girl, you’re enough”
- “Girl, you’re perfect”
- “Girl, live your truth, we are women, we are the best and the world would be better if we were by ourselves”
I was checking all the boxes… so why wasn’t I in the promised land?
A Turning Point
I realized that the mainstream feminist message had failed me. So, was feminism wrong? Was female empowerment a wrong approach?
As a concept, I think they’re great. However, I had to accept that it comes short in the practice.
So why did my vision about female empowerment change? Simply, because how I saw power had changed.
Something you need to know about me is that when I feel bad or uncomfortable, I gather information.
It’s my way of processing things: I do research, I read, I learn. I usually like that about me because it helps me make pretty balanced choices.
But sometimes it can be super annoying because this tendency can lead me to think that I’m absolutely right because I found “the truth”. I start thinking in black-and-white terms.
So I want you to know that I’m being very careful to be humble in my approach. Ultimately, I want to sit at the table and have productive conversations.
True Feminine Power
I recently came across this article by Anna Rova and I loved how she was able to express what I had been thinking and feeling for a while.
Anna Rova writes: “Historically, the one who has power has influence, can make important decisions, rule and govern people and territories.
Power gives people the ability to set the course of their own lives and also of the lives of others. Power gives the opportunity to rule, to decide, to be free, to buy, to own, to create”.
That’s why the term female empowerment was so attractive to me. I’m driven and ambitious, so the promise of power was SUPER attractive to me.
I loved the idea of being able to access that power by myself through self-empowerment. I loved that I wouldn’t need anything or anyone else.
The problem is that those traditional, “visible” models by which we were measuring power are masculine: they are measured in terms of achievement, progress, net-worth, muscles, and access to financial resources.
So by assuming that my power came from the traditional definition of power, I was pushing my feminine nature to the side.
Rova also says: “Femininity itself is power. We have been led to believe that it is our weakness when, in fact, it is our greatest gift”.
We don’t think femininity is valuable because we can’t measure it as well as we can measure the more masculine concept of power.
I love how the article goes on to say: “Female power sits in a woman’s hips, her heart and her womb. Modern women are disconnected from their hearts and wombs and are constantly in their heads rationalizing, intellectualizing, strategizing and “being busy.”
This wasn’t the article that led me to change my perspective on power, but it’s an article that has helped me put into words what I was feeling.
What If We Loved Our Feminine Power?
As women, we have power. We don’t need to be empowered, we just need to learn to love our feminine power.
It’s time to learn to use our feminine power. To understand that we don’t show that we are equal by behaving like men. As I said before, it’s not about sameness, but about equalness.
So what if we set aside the modern feminist and female empowerment narratives? What if we stopped blaming the patriarchy and all the other forces that are keeping women disempowered?
Let’s lean in to the power that comes with our creativity and intuition of being women.
Looking Ahead: The Intersection Between Femininity and Power
I love leading, strategizing, learning about business and teaching personal finances. I love to give my opinion and even have self diagnosed myself with verbal diarrhea.
But I also love romance, I love chivalry. My fiance is a gentleman. He treats me like a lady and that’s one of the things I love most about him.
I don’t want to tell women that they have to fit a “type” to be considered empowered.
Also, I don’t want to tell women that we are all perfect just because we are women and that the only thing holding us back from greatness is our insecurity.
Yes, we are constantly battling insecurities and undermining our own potential.
Fo sho, at times we can be our own worst enemies.
However…
There’s more to the story. Confidence and self esteem alone are not the promised land.
There’s so much more work to be done. There’s growth, there’s change that needs to happen. Isn’t that the point of life? If we were already perfect, we would be fine being our own gods.
Do I have all the answers now?
Is there a perfect solution on how to address this conflict about getting in touch with our femininity while addressing our desire to be leaders and access power in more tangible ways? I’ve found that there’s not.
Which is why I come to you from my experience to continue learning, giving you tips and tools, having conversations with great guests on my podcast, with some of my smartest friends, and sharing resources from people that are much wiser than me.
Thank you for joining today!! I am truly excited that you’re here.
You can also listen to the podcast episode on this same topic.
Share this blog post with two women! Not much, just 2. Two women that you know are also trying to find themselves in the midst of this “empowerment” movement.
Let’s get in touch at my Instagram @eugeniamorgado, I look forward to connecting with you ♡
With love, E. ♡
