Now Hear This.

Went to WCU last night to see a production of the Vagina Monologues.

I was clearly in the minority, being male, and was subjected to some words I had not heard before, at least not in the presence of women. Strange words, crude words perhaps but they were descriptive words and they were words charged with power.

Women, I thought, had never heard any of these words or if they did they would blanche and begin shaking and tell you to “Hush! Hush!” and they would run away blushing.

Tonight they were neither blanching nor blushing and they were not running away but charging.

I heard no new words, but I learned the meaning of one of the words which was only spoken once in the entire performance. It was a word I had heard before and I had always found it to be awkward and puzzling. Tonight I learned the meaning of it.
That word is “empowerment”.

I have heard blacks use it before and thought it a bit strange then.

Now I hear women claiming they are becoming empowered and they seem to become different beings.
Slowly I began to realize that I grew up in a white, male, Christian world as a white, Christian male. I had been empowered all my life, even when I was a small boy - at least the implements of power were mine to use when I learned how to claim them.

What is that empowerment? The power to claim a thing as your own, to promote or dismiss concepts as you wish, to do as you wish with yourself. The power to assert and to contradict. The power to be yourself and the power to lead. It is also the ability to publicly dismiss the power that certain concepts and words have been used to shame you. It is the power to break free.

Out of the mouths of babes come wisdom, eh? Well, perhaps everything in the whole world is speaking. In the final result, it is not who, or what is speaking, but what it is that those who are “listening” do not recognize.

Sometimes words of power must be used to break through barriers of unawareness.

Last night I too said a new word.

“Oh!”

© John Womack, 2006. All Rights Reserved.