The Feminine Fight Club

 

 

The feminine fight club was born on the 6 th July 2016. In a kitchen two women grappled each other to

the ground where one sustained a twisted ankle. It had come as a shock, the burst of energy that

erupted from the younger woman. It was the first day of her period and she was feeling aggressive and

impatient with those around her. So when the older woman grabbed her in a playful headlock the

younger women fought her way out, twisting until both landed hard on the concrete floor. Immediately

the older woman knew she had been injured, as she tried to bend her ankle she heard it click and then

the swelling began.

It wasn’t that they were angry at each other, but both had a rage simmering in their unconscious. No

one likes to feel powerless so they wanted to create a space where that rage could be expressed

productively. Intuitively the older woman had expressed that she wouldn’t fight knowing she wasn’t

ready to test her physical prowess against the younger woman. She had known something might

happen but she didn’t listen. The week before a friend of a friend had died because she was too busy

taking care of others to take care of herself. She didn’t seek medical attention until it was too late. The

day she was admitted to hospital she died. She left two children behind.

No one likes to be ill, have their mobility restricted or not be self-determined. It feels like a prison but

many women and girls live this way. 1 in every 3 girls is married before reaching the age of 18. In

developing countries this means that 47,000 girls don’t get to realize their true potential, most of them

also experience sexual violence. They are bound by patriarchal models which define how they should

behave as females.

So what is the message of these incidents? Don’t overextend yourself? Listen to your inner voice? Take

better care of your body? That day I realized how much I depend on my body. For the next week I was

forced to cancel appointments. It was very difficult, because even though I am female in gender I have

masculine energy in abundance – I’m active, giving, I make things happen.

How many of us give ourselves the time and space to express or experience our feminine energy, which

is passive, stillness, silent and receptive? These energies are important for balanced health. My feminine

and masculine energies were not balanced so I got injured.

maat

What I’m advocating is ‘Self Care’. Within our lives we need to make time for physical activities which

increase our heart rate and tone our muscles. The byproduct of which is a focused and peaceful mind, a

robust body with a strong immune system because our nerves and spine are flexible and energized. We

also need ‘time out’, to be still, to be quiet and receptive to our thoughts and feelings. To take a pause

doesn’t make us lazy or selfish but Self Full.

As leaders of the now and the future is we need to find our personal balance or what was known as

MAAT is pre historic Africa. If we don’t find it there is no way we can change our society, which is

suffering with all manner of diseases. Bodies and minds not at ease. We owe this to ourselves because

being empowered is not given by others. It’s something we have to give ourselves.

I will conclude with a quote from Anna Julia Cooper who was a black feminist activist. Born in 1858 in

North Carolina (USA) to her enslaved mother, Hannah Stanley Haywood, and her white slaveholder,

Anna Julia Cooper spent her lifetime of over a century redefining the limitations and opportunities for

women of color in a society set up for their disempowerment and subjugation. A distinguished scholar

and educator, Cooper saw the status and agency of black women as central to the equality and progress

of the nation.

‘All I claim is that there is a feminine as well as masculine side to truth: that these are related not as

inferior and superior, not as better or worse, not as weaker or stronger but as complements-

complements in one necessary and symmetric whole.