One day at elementary school in 3rd or 4th grade, the boys of our class had set themselves the challenge to make every girl of our class cry at least once. And so they started to assault all of us girls, one after the other.
One day, it was my turn. And when we were down in the schoolyard during recess, they also tried to hurt me by getting physically aggressive.
But I did not cry. I just got very angry.
But how should I deal with this situation?
Fortunately, I remembered a story my mom had told me. When she was attacked as a young girl by several boys, she held her school bag on her outstretched arm and then started to spin around fast so that the school bag would hit all the boys who were trying to attack her. And then they went away and didn’t try again.
She had told me that story several times with much emphasis and a victorious look in her eyes. I was impressed. When she could do that, I could do that, too.
And in self-defense, I took one of the boys who attacked me and shoved him against the wall of the school building.
I don’t recall whether he suffered any serious injuries. Maybe he got a bruise on his forehead? But I didn’t think I caused a serious concussion or so. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go to the principal afterwards because of my self-defense.
After that, the boys left me alone and I felt very satisfied with myself, proud that I hadn’t cried (as they had intended me to do) and that I had shown them that they shouldn’t mess with me. I also regained a sense of safety being on the schoolyard.
What did I learn from the incident? It was helpful to have a role model – my mom who had told me how she had defended herself. And I also learned that it was possible for me to defend myself. Anger was a helpful emotion which enabled me to set boundaries.
But once again in my life (like in the post about the bully at the corner shop), the boys were the ones who were the aggressors and I was in the role of the victim and that left its mark.
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This post is part of an online book about my journey with feminism and my son’s transgender journey. You can access the table of contents with links to each chapter here: TOC.
Before I share more stories about unfair treatment I received while growing up as a girl, I also want to share a different way of looking at these incidents.
When I sat down to write my story and these memories of being victimized poured out of me, fueled by anger about unfair treatment, my guidance reminded me to ‘look at the pearls’ that came from these experiences. As in the saying that it is the sand in the oyster that makes the pearl. Meaning don’t fret about the irritation. Instead look at what fruit, result, or learning experience came from that irritation.
The guidance came via signs that told me to slow down. An inner voice told me to get a channeling to get support for this writing project (which I declined). And then there were synchronicities; one of them was a tiny piece of debris which flew into my eye while biking. It was so small that I could neither see it nor get it out. But my eye put some mucus around it to prevent me from harm, somewhat like an oyster would treat a grain of sand. The eyeball wasn’t scratched, but the ball of mucus still bothered me until I could remove it eventually.
The other synchronicity was that soon after the incident with my eye my younger son stepped on two tiny pearls on the balcony (see picture with the pencil for size comparison). No idea where they came from. But the series of events seemed like my guidance wanted to have my attention to get a point across.
So, here’s thinking about the pearls. I’ve often wondered why I had so many instances in my life where people overstepped my boundaries or tried to push me off my center, not only related to misogynist events but in general. And here are some ways to make sense of this and to find peace with it:
Aries North Node Astrology is new for me and I’m still quite illiterate when it comes to this topic. But one thing I have learned (after fellow blogger Linda gave me a reading) is about the Moon nodes. The Moon’s south node is where we come from and what we are familiar and comfortable with. The Moon north node is where go to, the direction of development and growth.
I have Libra south node, and one aspect of that is that I am comfortable in the role of the peacekeeper and making compromises. My Aries north node means (among other things) that I need to prioritize my own goals and learn to express my anger in an open and healthy way – even if that pisses other people off. I have to love myself, putting self before relationships.
Loving myself also involved learning to trust my inner knowing. There were several events in my life where I thought something felt off or wrong. But how should I deal with this inner knowing when people around me said things like, “Oh, you shouldn’t be feeling this emotion. No, this incident hasn’t really happened. No, you shouldn’t speak up about it. It’s all your fault.”
I think learning to set boundaries and to stand up for myself might be part of my life’s training path.
Showing People What It Means to Hold Boundaries Once I had a reading by channeler Lisa Wechtenhiser. And I asked her why I had these repeating experiences throughout my life of people who overstepped my boundaries in one way or the other. She replied that I had had many lifetimes of being a victim with no voice. But in this lifetime I was going to the other extreme and showing people what it meant to set and hold boundaries. Unfortunately, that also meant that I would attract people who overstepped boundaries. She suggested that I could do a burn and release ritual to end this contract by writing the intention down on paper, stating that I have fulfilled it, and then burning the slip of paper afterwards. I haven’t done that yet. I’m somehow afraid that I will not be allowed to defend myself anymore afterwards and then be defenseless and vulnerable. Too risky. But this action is still on my todo list.
I don’t know whether that past life piece is true or not. I have not had a past-life regression where I would have experienced these past lifetimes as a victim. But I had another reading from another channeler who confirmed the many-lifetimes-as-a-victim part. So, maybe that explanation makes sense.
Once, a female colleague at my corporate job remarked that I was good at setting boundaries and she admitted that she was a bit envious of it. And I think that is true. When my managers wanted to pile workload on me which I considered too much or not feasible, then I rejected it. And when my colleagues discussed where and when to do the mandatory fun team event, I said I would flat-out refuse any event after working hours. Whereas another colleague who also didn’t want to go out in the evening tried to get his message across much more politely but also in an unclear way. So, I think I have learned to set boundaries in my life.
Setting boundaries comes naturally when I want something a lot (like less workload or no work event in the evening) and while I do anticipate the backlash (my boss won’t promote me or my coworkers might think of me as asocial), I don’t care about their reaction. Because it is not important that they promote me or like me. Please note that I live and work in Germany and the laws are different than in the US and we are not immediately fired here after rejecting a too high workload.
Forging energetic paths
I’ve read several channelings which said that overcoming an obstacle would forge an energetic path so that others who came afterwards would have it easier. While I used to think that in order to make the knowledge available to others one would have to teach others in classes, this is not the only way. The mere act of successfully dealing with difficulties ourselves makes the path easier for others who come after us.
Not all of the obstacles I overcame were new and pioneer work, of course, but certainly some aspects were on the front edge (I will share later, for example, how my husband and I shared family duties and financial responsibilities; or how I supported my trans son even though he has quite some feminine ways of expression with clothing, for example, which often made me wonder whether he really was trans).
Neo’s Martial Art Lessons with Morpheus Sometimes I think of a scene in the movie The Matrix. After having escaped the matrix, Neo gets martial arts lessons with Morpheus to make him stronger.
These ugly encounters in my life could be something like Neo’s martial arts lessons. Except, I am usually so pissed off after each incident that I take a long time to calm down and then go into the thought spiral of ‘Why me? Life sucks so much with all these a**holes around. I don’t wanna be incarnate. And I never want to incarnate again!’
But I probably should just keep calm and carry on. Deal with what needs to be dealt with and then let it go and look at what I learned from it.
Mirroring Another way to look at disturbing events is that they could be mirrors of what is going on inside of me. For example, if I think of myself as not good enough or not deserving enough, then other people might treat me like that, mirroring my own thinking back to me.
In case this applied, then the way to resolve it would be to remember this: ‘Don’t try to fix the mirror.’
I think that it is probably a mixture. Some incidents served to make me stronger. And others should let me look at my own internalized sexism.
Using Anger as as Fuel Despite the theoretical knowledge that there is another way to look at this, my emotional state is often way different than peace. At times I manage to let go and forgive. But at other times, I still feel anger boiling under the surface. It is like a very determined inner ‘No!’ about the current state of how women are treated. That it is not okay and needs to stop.
While forgiveness is still work in progress, I think that anger has a purpose, namely that of setting boundaries. So, I use my anger for being on guard when someone oversteps my boundaries. Also, I can use the anger as a fuel for my writing. And maybe bringing awareness to these topics (feminism and also transidentity) is another ‘pearl’ which comes from all the challenges.
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This post is part of an online book about my journey with feminism and my son’s transgender journey. You can access the table of contents with links to each chapter here: TOC.
When my older child came out as a transgender boy, I thought, ‘How does he know he is a boy? Maybe I should start with how do I know that I am a woman?’ What was it inside of me that felt woman-like? I could not pinpoint anything. I just knew that it didn’t feel wrong when people addressed me as ‘Frau Finger or Ms Finger’. Whereas for my trans son, it felt gut-wrenchingly wrong to be addressed as a girl.
It didn’t feel wrong for me to have a female voice whereas for my son his high voice felt wrong.
What else was there inside of me that made me a woman? I looked back at how I grew up and what was gender specific about that. And what came to my mind were many little anecdotes which were related to growing up in a patriarchal and misogynist society from about 1970 to around the turn of the millenium.
In this and the following posts, I share some stories about what growing up as a girl meant for me. About the gender stereotypes which created little boxes in which I was supposed to stay. But also about standing up for myself and then dealing with the backlash of others who didn’t like that I stood up for myself.
And the normal everyday misogyny.
The Corner Shop Incident
When I was at pre-school age, an older boy tried to steal money from me. We lived in the south of what was West Berlin at that time in a house on a quiet, small street with red, round cobblestones and tall horse chestnut trees at both sides. Across from our house just one block away, there was a little corner shop. I was merely 4 or 5 years old, but I was allowed to go there by myself and buy something. It was probably some kind of training for later when I would walk to the elementary school by myself. While I was away, my mom stared out of the kitchen window and made sure that I wasn’t run over by a car when I crossed our small street.
I went to the shop, making sure that I looked left and right and left again when crossing the street, just as I had been taught. The shop was very small and set up in such a way that I had to go to the desk at the counter and ask the person there for what I wanted. I remember that they had a large jar with candies on the counter. I don’t remember what I bought. It could have been a sack of flour for mom or just some candy for myself.
However, I do remember what happened when I left the shop. As soon as I was outside on the stairs, an older boy of maybe 13 years and with brown hair came to me and commanded, “Give me your money!” He wanted the few coins of change I got back from the shop.
He attempted to grab it from me. I was much younger and smaller than him. But I bent over, wrapping my little body around the purse with the money, and with all the power I could muster, I screamed, “Noooo!”
Until he eventually backed off.
It still amazes me that nobody came out of the shop to help me. And apparently my parents didn’t see it either since it was about a block away from our house.
I don’t remember what happened afterwards. I figure that I must have told my parents about it. I don’t remember how they reacted. They did definitely not go back with me to this boy to admonish him. We didn’t know where he lived. As I learned many decades later, the boy had lived in the same street.
The Sequel
8 or 9 years after the incident at the corner shop, I was 13 years old and in the hospital after my tonsils had been removed. I was lying there in bed when a nurse came in to take care of me.
OMG! Shocked with a sudden adrenaline rush, my heart started to pound. Although around 8 or 9 years had passed, I recognized his face. It was the same guy who had tried to rob me at the corner shop when I was a little girl. He probably did not recognize me.
Fearful thoughts rushed through my head. What was he going to do to me this time? Rob me again? Poison me? I felt fearful, vulnerable, and helpless.
But this time in the hospital, he behaved well and probably served me some vanilla ice cream for my sore throat.
I thought about confronting him right there about his past behavior. But then I abandoned this thought. I was still weak from the surgery and had a sore throat after the tonsils had been removed. And why bother. I figured the fact that he was a nurse now and had to take care of other people was probably enough of a sign that his life had turned to the better (and enough of a penalty for being such a jerk when he was younger).
The little corner shop does not exist anymore. It has turned into a usual house for living now. But every time I walked with my parents past this house in our street, I was reminded of this old story.
Being robbed can happen regardless of gender and is not misogynist per se. But I have included the story since I was a girl and the robber was an older boy.
This was just the first story of a longer series of incidents which showed me that there were some disadvantages of being a girl but which also taught me about the importance of standing up for myself.
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This post is part of an online book about my journey with feminism and my son’s transgender journey. You can access the table of contents with links to each chapter here: TOC.
When I thought about what having a transgender son meant for me, I also reflected about what it meant for me to be a woman. Well, there were two sides two it. Growing up into a self-confident woman in a priviledged environment and also growing up in a patriarchal society where misogyny was still very much part of the mindset.
I was born in a middle-class family at the end of the sixties. My parents were both teachers – my mom at an elementary school (originally for Biology, but then for almost every other subject, too) and my dad at a high school (for Latin, ancient Greek, and History).
Our family environment was pretty stable. No issues like divorce, physical abuse, alcohol or drugs. Sure, I remember some incidents where my parents had an argument, became angry and shouted at each other. I got scared and asked my mom fearfully, “Will you get a divorce now?” Always hoping that this would never happen. She assured me that they didn’t get divorced just because they had been angry with each other.
All in all, I remember a happy family life and a happy childhood. I was encouraged to go to high school and allowed to study afterwards.
Being the Older Sister I was the older sister with a brother who was two years younger than me. Being the older sister was something that contributed to my self-confidence.
My mom used to tell me that she was the youngest girl with two brothers (twins) who were both 5 years older than she was. This meant she was not only lectured by the adults around her but also by her older brothers. And even long after her retirement when issues of her being helpless and dependent came up, she would always justify this with, “You know, I was the youngest in my family. I always had someone to take care of me and protect me.” I felt sorry for her, but happy that I did not grow up being the younger sibling.
I was tall (around 5′ 10″ or 178 cm) which also contributed to my self-confidence.
Working as a Woman In her family, my mom had to defend her right to work as a teacher and earn money. When she started to work, her father got sad about it and said full of sorrow, “This is not a fate I had wanted for my daughter.” And her mother often said that surely the kids would grow up with some kind of damage if mom worked instead of taking care of us. Even though my granddad allowed my mom to study biology at the university to become a school teacher, he did not want her to work after that. In his opinion, women had the ‘privilege’ to stay home and take care of the kids and the household chores.
I think it was good that my mom worked part time as a teacher even though that meant that we had several nannies taking care of us during the early years.
Some Interesting Facts About the Legal Situation in Germany: Until 1958, women in Germany could only work if their husband agreed. With a new law as of 1958, women could work even if their husband didn’t agree. But only if the woman could take care of the kids and the household in addition to her job.
In 1977, a new law in Germany stated that women were now free to have a job even if their husband didn’t agree and even if they could not handle the household and the kids in addition to their job.
As of 1958, married women were legally allowed to have their own bank accounts. Before 1958, the husband would take care of his wife’s money. That was the legal setting and the mindset in which my parents got married and had kids.
New laws for equal rights are good. But if the mindset is still drenched in old ways of thinking, then things don’t suddenly change just because there is a new law.
How to Share Fincancial Responsibilities in a Marriage? Even though both of my parents worked and earned money, they had unclear ways to deal with their income. Who pays for what? How to make sure the financial responsibilities are shared fairly? That was never clear. My dad said that my mom could keep the money she earned because he somehow felt that he alone should be able to provide for the family. But then my mom ended up having to buy most of the Christmas gifts and other presents by herself anyway. (At least according to what she told me.)
I saw that this was not an ideal scenario and was determined to handle things differently when I grew up. I was determined to find a good job and be able to earn money. And I also wanted to make sure that the financial responsibilities would be shared in a fair way.
Interests and Talents I had many interests and was talented in many ways, mainly in dancing and also in various arts and handicrafts like painting, knitting, sewing, and playing violin, for example. I designed and sewed my own dresses for my passion of latin and ballroom competition dancing; one gown for ballroom dancing and three dresses for latin dancing. I played violin in the orchestra at school. Later, I got into playing Irish fiddle tunes and played in a band.
Résumé At school and university, I was smart, ambitious, and disciplined. I went to a high school in Berlin where we had to take either Latin or the ancient Greek language as one of two majors for our high school diploma while the other major could be chosen freely (- I chose Greek and chemistry). In 1988, I graduated from high school as the valedictorian.
Afterwards, I started studying chemistry and about 1,5 years later I got a prestigious scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. When I was asked by the scholarship foundation to go to Stanford, I said yes and got to spend one year in the US at this wonderful university in sunny California doing research for my diploma thesis in physical chemistry in 1992/93. In 1996, I got my doctorate in theoretical chemistry with summa cum laude at the Free University of Berlin, Germany.
Afterwards, I did an internship at a consulting firm for about three months. And then I moved from the large city Berlin to the small town Walldorf (south of Heidelberg) and started working in the corporate world in 1997.
All of that led to me growing up with a lot of self-confidence. I saw myself as a capable woman. If there were obstacles to overcome, I was convinced that I would be able to tackle the challenges – provided, of course, that I had the strong motivation and intention to do it and that I found it worthwile to put effort into it.
I am aware that intelligence and good grades and academic success are not everything for navigating through life. Emotional intelligence and resilience when faced with setbacks are also important, as are the ability to tune into intuition or inner knowing and, of course, the willingness and surrender to follow the soul’s chosen path. But that IQ part of the intelligence coupled with the ability to have willpower and discipline was certainly a major building block for my self-confidence.
Side Effects of Patriarchy I saw my self-confidence as a valuable asset in my life. But that was only one side of the story.
The other side was growing up female in a patriarchal society and the frequent misogynist occurrences I encountered which attempted to intimidate me and keep me small and conforming to society’s standards for women.
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This post is part of an online book about my journey with feminism and my son’s transgender journey. You can access the table of contents with links to each chapter here: TOC.
Spiritual Awakening 