Lucie and Virginia Explore Space
What happens when women get the space to fully express themselves?
Space and women have an uneasy relationship.
So often in my coaching practice, and indeed at points in my own existence, I’ve noticed a curious propensity: women tend to shrink back, to minimize the ‘real estate’ they take up, when entering a space occupied primarily by people we don’t know, particularly by men. This can be a physical space, a Zoom room, or any platform where a sense of physical or psychological safety has not been established.
There’s historical/cultural conditioning behind this, of course. At a base level, women don’t always feel safe in their own bodies, which are so often seen as the property of others. Their opinions are too often met with skepticism, their voices drowned out, their emotions mimicked or scoffed at-- and those are the ones who feel brave enough to open their mouths in the first place. They’ve not had the opportunities, for legal/ cultural/ religious reasons, to express their talents and pursue their interests until fairly recent times – and many still don’t. So ‘taking up space’ is uncomfortable at a visceral level for many women, because it can feel like an imposition, an audacity, sometimes a life-threatening risk.
I’ve been thinking about this uneasy relationship this summer as I’ve been spending time with two of my new heroines: my paternal grandmother Lucie Bridget Whetstone and the writer/ philosopher/ feminist Virginia Woolf. Yes, I’ve had to travel to a different space and time to visit these two; in fact, to the 1920s, when both of these women were exploring ‘women and space’ from different angles in very different circumstances.
Lucie Bridget was a homesteader in Montana in the early 1900s. She left the safe harbor of her family in Illinois at the age of 19, when her peers were getting married and settling down to a life of predictable domesticity, and answered the call of the US government to head west, occupy a 160-acre plot of land, and ‘prove it up’ (make it profitable through crop cultivation, cattle ranching, or some other means) within 5 years, with the promise that it would then become your own. This was a tough life. The soil in Northern Montana was a challenge to farm, building materials were scarce, the weather – especially the winters -- could be harsh, and loneliness was ever-present. Fortunately, her eyes caught those of the neighboring homesteader, my grandfather. I learned through letters from said grandfather that they commuted between their two homesteads by motorcycle! (Not sure if there was a sidecar involved…) They then joined their households, raised 5 children, figured out how to make ends meet when the never-truly-fertile homestead soil well and truly dried up – she as a journalist and then dress-shop owner, he as a land surveyor and postmaster – and lived out their days in the wide open spaces of Northern Montana. I never actually met my grandmother except in my fantasy time travel, though from glimpses I have of her from my grandfather’s letters and a few photos I sense that, because she entered a space where few expectations and restrictions were imposed on women, she could more fully express herself. This is my favorite photo of her (she’s the one in the driver’s seat), looking fully liberated. And, of course, surrounded by other supportive women!
After finishing my grandfather’s letters, I chanced upon a copy of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” on my mom’s bookshelf and re-read it. What an irony that, in the same era as my grandmother was feeling so liberated, Woolf found herself in traditional English society chafing against the restrictions on women intellects and creatives that ultimately contributed to her suicide. This seminal book argues strongly that these women need space (not the wide open spaces of Montana, per se; simply a room with a door that locks!) and support (at least financial if not emotional) to generate creative ideas and to fully express themselves; that the world will benefit tremendously from this.
So much more to say about Lucie and Virginia, though I prefer to honor them by doing; by putting into practice the essential lesson I’ve learned from them which is – give women space! And the freedom, encouragement and support to fully express themselves in that space. I believe at my core that the world will benefit tremendously from this. It’s at the core of all my Sidecar offerings.
Sidecar Summit Portugal 2023 takes S P A C E Exploration as its theme. Registration kicks off next Tuesday, August 15 (watch this space!). Early birds who register by September 1 get a space saved and a financial break. Want to share a space with a friend? You get an even bigger break! And yes, space is limited (!), so claim yours early.
Yours in getting space-y,
Bridget
