02/13/2026
What have we done to women?
We’ve made warriors of them and then shamed them for not being our wh**es, our a maids and mothers.
For being cold
Angry
Too much
Too little
For being anything really as it’s never enough.
How dare we cast them alone into the arena and then turn up our noses at the scars and actions that they alone had to harness to survive, then thrive.
“Warrior women, fierce and bold,
Condemned for actions we can't uphold,
Their ferocity and muchness feared,
In the arena alone and smeared.”
I dreamed of a woman who had come to me bare and free of her armor, standing tall and proud, beaten but not broken…..exhausted….empty….
I offered an embrace….and for the first time in her life she was held in love, not for objection or pleasure, nor wanting to wound her, or wanting to take from her ,but to let her have a place to she didn’t need the armor that had become her skin, as she said “ let me keep it anyway “
And to not be shame either way.
“Mother maiden crone warrior, Their strength a threat to those blind and weak
Their bravery a challenge to the meek,
So we cast them out and forget,
Leaving them alone with regret.”
I dreamt of a woman who had cursed her beating heart and for letting it lead her to chose softness over the sword. I dreamt of hearing her story and wanting to tell her that life wasn’t a battle worth fighting if love wasn’t the prize, I couldnt. I wonder if the fight is never ending. I wonder if wanting to ever lay down the arms against arrogance, angry little boys, the tiny tyrant kings on their thrones of bones built by the women that they ruined, razed and ridiculed, but could never break.
“Warrior women when they return victorious,
We punish them for surviving thus,
For daring to stand and fight,
For refusing to give up their right.”
I dreamt of a woman who came to me “crazy” from the chaos the world had thrown upon her shoulders and heart. She came to me crying…..”what have I done to deserve this? Will there never be and end, will I ever break, instead of this infinite bending?”
What have we done to women that they question the world ever wanting anything different for them?
“Oh, how we forget the cost,
Of a battle that must be fought,
And the price that must be paid,
To see a better world made.”
I hear the screams and the cries of the shadows of these dreams.
These horrors have all been wrought from the woes of wounded humans, lashing out at the women in their lives.
Why?
Why have we forsaken women?
Why have we cast them into the wild Forrest to be forgotten?
Why then when they return we disregard them and tell them they aren’t wanted, they aren’t desired, they are too much for the civil world, and we steal the gold and glory that they won with their own blood and body?
Betrayed by sister, father, mother, brother, lover and law
Forced them to say “ I will do it myself “
Then criticize them for being too sensitive, too much, too guarded….when we have forced them to never rest or let their guard down, except when we want them for our bed.
“So let us honor these warrior women,
Who fight for what is right and true,
And let us stand with them,
In the fight that we must all pursue.”
So I challenge you
Man
Woman
Mother
Father
Sister
Brother
We can do better
It is too late for some….so show softness towards the wounds and words, always for they have carried on too much for too long
Let anger, and rage and pain have a space to be (you do not have to hold it, and unless you caused it, you don’t have to carry it)
There are simple things you can do
Let her be in her muchness, her pain, her anger
Let her feel
Let her have a safe space to let her armor fall away, or to even keep it,
Show her there is a way of honoring this armor and its existence, it’s not our place to say anything about it.
Let her have a home in your heart to lay down the sword and shield she has had to forge her spirit into.
There is never a time or a place ever to tell a woman she is too much or not enough of anything
Every woman has had to face this demon, and many have come Home victorious
Some are still in the arena,
Some will be until their battle is won
Some will remain because it is all they know
There is much we can do about the suffering of the world and the journey we each have to take.
we can all be allies in the arena
I know we have done great harm to our men as well, I have words for them too.
But now we must listen with open hearts to what has been done.
To grieve it
To know that what has been done to another has been done to oneself.
That within everyone is this story to some degree.
What we have done to the world.
Larson Langston
Medusa with the head of Perseus
Luciano Garbati
