I Found The Women’s Web Community A Haven Of Acceptance And Women’s Stories

What does it feel like to be a member of the Women’s Web community? A contributor shares what it’s like to be in a space where women’s stories have a voice and acceptance. 

I have been reading and immersing myself in the problems, plans, perspectives and solutions and resolutions of women across Women’s Web over the last few days. It has made me feel amazed, joyous, laugh like a maniac, feel teary eyed and poignant. I felt proud and pleased and so many other emotions at all the things I have been reading.

Be it about balancing the masculine and feminine energies required today or gender based segregation of roles and its ramifications for women; or about successful women entrepreneurs from the north-east; the relationship between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law; even tips on how to stay on top of one’s finances, there has been a thread of pure resonance and empathy that I have been feeling with all of it.

What is happening here?

There are a number of mental and emotional processes, belief questioning systems that challenge the assumption and judgements that take place through all the writing and sharing. However, a fundamental underlying process that I see running as a single thread through all of this. That of ACCEPTANCE.

I see every article, statement, and all emotions and perspectives that are being poured out as a process of acceptance of oneself, warts and all, that is happening. It is not a one time packaged product, but an ongoing process.

And it is from such acceptance that a wholesome, positive and powerful action emerges. Acceptance allows us to move from a location of victimhood to that of heroism and a harmonising.

It sometimes leads one to acceptance of reality. Only when we accept reality do we discover the power to become larger than reality, larger than the circumstances that define realities. And that is when we are able to transform the realities into opportunities for change.

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I feel that this is a major shift that is happening here, at Women’s Web, with every word published.

How is it happening

Each one of us is a STORY TELLER! We just have to browse through a dozen of these pages to get double the number of stories. And stories are the bare bones of psychology and the inner world.

It is through stories, that we make sense of ourselves and the world around us. We make meanings of our lives through their reflections in the stories that we listen to and exchange.

It is for this reason that we tell stories to our children. Stories are fundamentally how the soul transfer happens. And each of us have multiple stories in our pockets, pans, baskets, up our sleeves, folded into skirts and kerchiefs. Stories tied into our hair, crowded in our heads, stuffed into suitcases and cardboard cartons. The ones thrown deep into the loft, at the tip of our pens and fingers, just waiting to flow out….

As we tell our stories of hope, love, suffering, fears, friendship, old and new lives, hurts, discoveries, the basic mother story, seems to be of acceptance!

The larger picture and the politics

It is very important to understand one’s location in the larger canvas of events. And how one is related and impacting or contributing to the collective.

Women’s Web is an initiative for women to share. It is, for the most part, if not all, WOMEN WRITING ABOUT WOMEN.

Women are talking about things that matter to women. They are talking about the challenges they face, the struggles they go through, the happiness, and achievements. We are telling our stories.

If you undertake even a cursory browsing of history you will understand how significant this is. For ages, we have had men telling the stories of women. Narratives will largely be male-centric if they are written by men – they can be otherwise, but this has been rather sparse, few and far between.

An example of such a male voice could be Satyajit Ray – his cinema could perhaps be said to have women narratives and voices. Over the years, there have also been women who have struggled to bring out the voices of women. 

However, this has always remained the minority. It is in recent years that we are waking up to this phenomenon. Women have started to write about women.

Women’s Web is enhancing this movement in a big way.

More power to us and them!

Picture credits: Pexels

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