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.
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.