Women are Just as Capable of Leadership as Men... I Guess...

A couple weeks ago, a friend was saying that she noticed a change in me after I cut my hair. She said that long-haired Gloria was a follower but short-haired Gloria was a leader. Its a little more complicated than that, but its interesting because there actually was a direct correlation between why I cut my hair and why I became a leader.

The reason for both was this: Honestly, I was waiting to find a nice Christian man who had dreams so that I could support him in whatever he wanted to do. I DID have dreams of my own - of community and having a very open house to marginalized people... but it was an awkward dream and I didn't like thinking about it. Its weird to answer, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" with "live in community with marginalized women." Its easier to just say, "oh, you know, maybe teach?"

And then, one night last year I was up fretting about the future. And I realized that I had this dream and I knew it was attainable and I knew it was all I really wanted. So I got out of bed and went to my kitchen fridge and made a poem prayer with our fridge poetry. The poem took me about an hour, maybe more, but it was that night that I realized I needed to grab life by the horns and pursue my dreams.

This seems almost sinful to me, pursuing my own dreams. It seems selfish, like, who am I, a WOMAN, leading ANYTHING? It seems like such an unflexible situation for any man to appear in. I mean, isn't it my role to be his "helper"?

But the thing is there was no man, and there may never be any man. Mother Teresa didn't have a man and she did fine. So... sometimes you just have to go for it, and who cares if its a turn off.

So, in a wash of independence I cut my hair short. I did so because the main reason it was long was because I had read somewhere that guys like long hair. The hair hadn't done a tonne to attract many guys anyway, and the ones it had attracted hadn't been stellar anyway. And I was no longer waiting for a guy to come along for my life's ministry to start. So, if I wanted it short and I wasn't waiting around for a guy for my life to start, why not cut it short?

And I also switched schools and majors. I wanted to stay in university because I loved learning, but I realized I didn't really need to worry about the practicality of whatever I majored in because getting a career wasn't what I wanted to focus on anyway. I didn't want to become a psychologist, to get paid to counsel people, and I didn't even like Psychology! So why would I major in something I hated so much?

Everything became clear. Well, except that I still don't know what I'll actually do to make money, but that really doesn't matter. I believe God ordained these dreams or else they wouldn't be so persistent. And God has lots of money. So screw it all!

I still feel a little weird... and this still feels really selfish. How dare I pursue something I WANT to do! Its just so... unfeminine. Or, at least it is if you believe the sole purpose of women is to be supportive to men. But again, there was no man, so I had nobody to do that for!

It scares me that my automatic thinking is so medieval. I *know* that's wrong, that God gives women dreams and leadership abilities too. I know that because I am a woman with dreams and the ability to lead.

Oye. I don't know. I don't like feeling thrust in the position of being an angry, defiant bra-burning feminist but it seems necessary.