Some of you women know who you are. Many of you do not. Resilience is being able to withstand or recover from difficult conditions. Certainly, there are resilient men, and books have been written about resilient children. However, my focus is upon the resilience that I have observed and learned of in so many women that I have encountered here and throughout my life. You are women who have risen from the ashes of personal and family tragedies. You are women who have hit a wall in life and rather than stop, you have reinvented yourself and moved forward. You are women who have placed your personal goals second to those of another person, adjusting and adapting without complaint. You are women who have persevered.
Your resilience is not necessarily about being successful. Sometimes it is just about enduring. Enduring the patronizing words of a car salesman, or the dismissive attitude of a contractor. Enduring the distinction that when a woman raises her voice she is deemed “shrill”, or just a bitch, but when man does he is seen as strong and assertive. I have been told that it is having to work twice as hard as a man in order to receive 70% of the pay that he receives for the same job. It is listening to your brother being asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, when most assume your sole ambition is to be a wife and a mother. You are an indispensable part of our political, business, and religious institutions which traditionally create headwinds, if not barriers, to your advancement. You endure and then you move on.
I see your resilience. If anything I have said resonates with your life experience then please take a moment to congratulate yourself… you are resilient.
Peace. Peter Schloss