Please Remember The Kind Of Love A Strong Woman Deserves

Remember that we deserve to be treated with respect—both when people are dealing directly with us and when we’re not even in the room. We have every right to ask for respect when it is not being freely delivered to us. Being funny doesn’t mean women should be the punch line of every joke. Being one of the guys doesn’t mean that your femininity should be sacrificed.

Remember that we deserve to be loved properly. Reciprocity is not necessarily an eye for an eye, but in all relationships the energy that you put out should be the energy that is returned to you. It might feel romantic to wait, to be patient, to work for love but these are choices we don’t have to make if we choose not to. Love should not lead to early morning examinations of your self worth or questions of whether or not you are deserving, it should light the darkest parts of you and make you even more yourself.

Remember that we deserve safety. Why is it that when a group of girls is sitting around a table at happy hour and one tells a story of being roofied, objectified, or sexually assaulted there is always a follow up story from a friend? These breaches of personal safety have become too normalized in our culture. We deserve to go out dancing for the night without worrying about having an escape plan from overly persistent suitors. We deserve to wear what we want and not have to answer to strangers about our clothing.

Remember that we deserve to define ourselves. There is no one that knows who you are better than yourself. We have the ability to mold ourselves each day into the women we want to be through our actions and our words. The opinions and judgments of others have no bearing on who or what we can be. Creating ourselves into strong women that fill a role in the family, workplace, or society to which we have aspired allows other women to follow in our footsteps.