"Fight like a girl!"
That's the slogan on the back of one of the T-shirts that will be at the Make Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk here in Binghamton today. So as I get ready to leave for the walk, I'm wondering about that phrase means.
In my house full of boys it's traditionally been an insult. Don't get caught crying like a girl, punching like a girl, running like a girl, or, heaven forbid, playing baseball like a girl--it just won't do. So fighting like a girl, hasn't traditionally been a compliment 'round here.
But I know that my young sons are starting to grow up to learn what it really means to fight like a girl. As they learn what women have fought for in history, as they benefit from the quiet strength of the women that I hope will remain in their lives, as they meet women who fight like no man they've ever met before, they'll learn. It takes a little longer to see because we women don't fight with punches and guns and bombs, we fight with an inner strength that few men have, and that many women don't know that they have.
And that is what I want my sons to know, and two of them will be walking with me today. It is what I want my middle school students to know, the strong women I know who fight like girls.
I want them to know about my friend Debbie, who waited to tell her daughters about her diagnosis and upcoming surgery, until her granddaughter was born. Erin had already lost one child to miscarriage, and Debbie wanted to be support for her daughter, not more stress.
Or my friend Lauren, Deb's other daughter, who celebrated her daughter's first birthday, lost her job, and then received her own diagnosis. And the fight she faces is a long one, but she has already started admirably, with optimism and strength that her daughter can be proud of.
I want them to fight like my friend Sara, who struggled for months making a decision to leave a difficult marriage, only to be diagnosed shortly afterward. Her decision to stay with her husband and fight for her health was as much for her children as herself.
I want them to remember people like my friend Tina, whose death was followed 3 weeks later, by that of her husband, who couldn't see living his life without her. And to know strong people like Tina's daughter now raising her teenage brother.
I'm walking because I've been inspired by a lot of strong women who fight like girls, with the hope that someday they won't have to anymore.
