Where is our superman?

Women have been told since they were small children that they need a superman. Some godlike being who could save us from falling victim to poverty, unhappiness, and help us procreate to populate the world. We are told that this is our purpose—it is why women were created.

We are told still today that we are not enough and that we cannot make it on our own. We are not complete without our superman. We are told to feel lucky to even make it through a day without the help of a man.

But, perhaps, we are our own superwoman.

Growing up with a sister and a brother, I noticed early on how my brother was told to achieve while my sister and I were told to find a husband to take care of us. My brother would take a wife and help her be okay in life. He would elevate her status in the world. She would be a treasured wife, and he would be her superman, her hero, her knight. And even when I was young, I thought what a load of sh*t.

Why would she perish without a man? Was she destitute with a full-time job, her own home, and a happy life? She was enough and whole before he arrived on the scene.

Girls played house and dress-up to learn how to take care of a man. Men traveled and took adventurous trips, did whatever they wanted, failed, tried again and again, while their women stayed home to clean and cook for them. They had to stay home to take care of the children, house, and prepare supper. The power was all in the male’s hands.

Women were meek and not knowledgeable about anything other than having babies and baking cakes. We wore aprons and allowed our spouses to dictate our lives. We thought we were no one unless we had a husband. Apparently, society thought we were going to wander the desert for decades and die in the sands and pollute their water streams with our remains.

Recently, women have figured out, all on their own, that they are happy when single and tackling the world alone. They have started to believe they are enough. It is time for us to believe that we are stronger than anyone gives us credit for—including ourselves.

We are our own superwoman.

We do not need a man to come save us, complete us, or tell us how to live our lives. Now before we get into a huff, I am not saying there is anything wrong with being a mother and/or wife, but I am saying it is your choice how you live your life. I was both a wife and mother in my lifetime. It is up to you—and you alone—on what you achieve, what you dream about, what you do with your time. We should not be pigeonholed into a limited belief that is decades old and served only half society.

Society views women differently now, but many people still see a spouse completing us. Why do we need to marry another person to be complete? Were we not whole before this? We have friends, goals, dreams. We manage to run companies and have a full life.

Marriage is a choice; it should not be a goal little girls are told to dream of. Alone, we are our own superwoman. We can tackle life alone. We can achieve anything our hearts desire. Yes, we may fail (everyone does), but we are fierce warriors of our own lives, and we will not be told we need a man to complete us. That is bullsh*t.

Superman is a pipe dream we have been fed for decades. The idea of a perfect person to save us from peril is ridiculous. Live your life for you. You are perfect by yourself. If you marry, then you have two complete people coming together in love—neither should be rescuing the other. Each is a whole—each is their own super person.

Let us start telling little girls that they can run companies when they grow up, that they can lead troops into battle, that they can tackle anything they set out to—that their worth is based on them and them alone. Let us stop telling them the bull of needing a superman to rescue them, and in doing so, perhaps they will become the first female to tackle a new field, or be a strong female activist, or at the very least, a female who knows her worth. They are perfect by themselves. Tell them to dream big because no superman is going to stand in their way of doing anything.

Superman is a great concept, but when we build a whole generation of youth who sit and wait to be rescued—who will run everything as they sit and wait—superman is an outdated concept. Let us tell our girls they are superwomen who can and will tackle this world. That their women tribe has their backs. That we are cheering them on and will hold them up when they need it. That they are whole and complete alone.

Life is hard enough without feeding women the bull of needing someone else to save them. May we all be our own superheroes. Let us grow strong female warriors to tackle all the world throws at us. Let us give them the truth—they are enough, and they are their own superwoman.

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