Monday, July 1, 2013

Women of Worth

Coincidentally (as far as I know), I saw all three of these things on Pinterest the other night:


The moment you feel like you have to prove your worth to someone is the moment to absolutely and utterly walk away. ― Alysia Harris


So I'll admit, I swooned over the Fitzgerald quote like the rest of you did, and I don't know who Alysia Harris is. Maybe she isn't someone I'd normally want to quote (I couldn't find much about her, so I don't know). But when I saw that quote, I'd already been thinking something along the same lines—namely, that I don't love the idea of talking about women who are "worth" something—because that implies that there are women who aren't. 

No one's actually trying to say that, I know. And the description of that L'Oreal program is obviously great ("L'OrĂ©al Paris launched the Women of Worth program to celebrate everyday women who follow their true passion to make a difference in the world... Every year, ten women are selected and recognized for their extraordinary efforts to serve their communities. These Women of Worth selflessly give their time, energy and passion to causes close to their hearts"). I appreciate the sentiment that's intended here. I just think these are words we might want to think about a little more closely. 

There are no worthless women. All human beings have worth and value, and we all deserve to know that. We need to know it about ourselves, and we need to know it about everyone else. 

2 comments:

Lis said...

All women are definitely of worth, even if they don't realize it themselves. We all have potential to be amazing!

mkgs said...

Saw another thing like this on Pinterest yesterday—something about "the girl worth kissing" not being easy to kiss, or whatever. It's basically the same concept as those "when did [twig skinny girls] become hotter than [Marilyn Monroe]?" memes. I get where you're going with this, but we need to learn how to be nice to someone without denigrating someone else.