Tell Your Stories—Now More Than Ever!

Christine Blasey-Ford had memories, opinions, facts, and rights. One of her rights was to be heard.

So she told her story about a 36-year-old high school encounter with 2 drunken seniors who attacked her body to prove their dominance. Or maybe for a laugh. Or because they could. She told it to her husband before they were married. She told it in 2012 to a therapist to explain why she wanted 2 front doors. When Brett Kavanaugh went on the short list for Supreme Court Justice, she notified her congresswoman, Anna Eschoo and hoped she would never have to go public with it. She did her civic duty and it’s been part of the news cycle for the last couple of weeks. An unexpected benefit is that women all over the country are telling stories they kept private for decades. Waves of outrage are surging through the Internet

When asked about her worst memory, she said it was not the touching or his pinning her to the bed or his grinding his hips into hers, but the humiliation she felt when she heard them laughing as they “pinballed” down the stairs. Their laughter stole her dignity. She was physically overpowered, and at 15 she did not have the resilience to realize that it wasn’t her fault.

Admittedly, boys overpower girls sometimes, when they believe they can get away with it. Some boys and men force girls and women into a mold where they never belonged, and laugh at their prowess. If it can happen to Christine, who was an award-winning swimmer, it can certainly happen to more vulnerable girls and women.

Blasey-Ford thought she deserved it because she’d had a beer at a party at 15. The society she grew up in used to teach us that women were the weaker sex. When that happens now, we need to remind us of Eleanor Roosevelt’s words, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” We also need to tell our stories. There is power in writing the words and sharing the words. There is power in validation.

Women, tell your stories. Now, more than ever, the world needs to hear the voices of nurturing, assertive, rational, educated, and under-educated women. Scientists, poets, mathematicians, journalists, stay-at-home moms, working moms, young moms, grandmothers raising their kid’s kids, librarians, IT workers, software designers, romance writers all have stories to tell.

Women don’t fit into one mold any more than men do. We don’t have one voice, either, but most of us agree that sexually demeaning behavior is unbecoming and unacceptable.

All abuse is not about sex. It’s not necessarily about parents and children, drugs and alcohol, or bullying and being bullied. So women, tell your stories. Whether your story involves a man or not, whether it seems interesting to you or not, write it down for your children, your community, the world, and especially for yourself.

If you don’t tell your story, who will?

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B. Lynn Goodwin owns Writer Advice, www.writeradvice.com. Her memoir, Never Too Late: From Wannabe to Wife at 62 was a National Indie Excellence Award Winner, a Human Relations Indie Book Award Winner and more. She’s also written You Want Me to Do WHAT? Journaling for Caregivers and Talent, which was short-listed for a Literary Lightbox Award, won a bronze medal in the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards and was a finalist for a Sarton Women’s Book Award.

Goodwin’s shorter works have appeared in Voices of Caregivers, Hip Mama, Dramatics Magazine, Inspire Me Today, The Sun, Good Housekeeping.com, Purple Clover.com and many other places. She is a reviewer and teacher at Story Circle Network, and she is an editor, writer and manuscript coach at Writer Advice.

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NEVER TOO LATE: FROM WANNABE TO WIFE AT 62, B. Lynn Goodwin

How does a 62-year-old woman who’s never been married find happiness with a two-time widower seeking his third wife on . . . Craigslist!?

Does she throw caution to the wind and relinquish her freedom, or should she take a crash course in compromises? Author B. Lynn Goodwin tells all and more in Never Too Late. How she was attracted to Richard’s clear expectations, his honesty, and his incredible openness. She’d never met anyone like him. Would she recognize love if it knocked on her heart? And could an educated woman be happy moving into a blue-collar world? Whether you’ve been single forever, are trapped in an unhappy marriage, or you’re simply curious, you’ll find secrets to a happy marriage in Never Too Late.

” One by one, she confronts her doubts with openness and honesty in this memoir, relating it all with convincing clarity and a refreshing lack of sentimentality. This isn’t a conventional love story; rather, it’s a mature assessment of the pros and cons of having a relationship.” –Kirkus Reviews

“Very different from any love story you have ever read.” –Richard J. Smith, Ph.D., author of Life After Eighty,
Once Upon A Christmas, and Musings of an Old Man

“Never Too Late is an honest, insightful look at one of life’s greatest mysteries: the ever changing and ever challenging relationship between a man and a woman. This book is one you won’t want to miss!” –Mary Eileen Williams, Host of Feisty Side of Fifty, author of Land the Job You Love!: 10 Surefire Strategies for Jobseekers Over 50

“A vivid, engaging, and heart-warming tribute to that rare and wonderful thing: a late-in-life love.” –Susan Wittig Albert, Ph.D, author of Loving Eleanor and The General’s Women

“A book filled with grace and charm.” –Aline Soules, author of Meditation on Woman and Evening Sun

BUY THE BOOK HERE

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing