I’ve been reminded that Diane [Diane Balser, International Liberation Reference Person for Women] would like us to write. So here I am. The following is from notes taken after the women’s workshop in the Netherlands in February 2020 (just before workshops were cancelled due to COVID-19). 


It has been important for me to work on our sex as females—not on being female as an identity, but as a fact, and on how sexism hits us. 


Being a large, tall, strong woman has been hard in how sexism hit me. As a girl in primary school I was the tallest. That was hard, since an early message for me as a girl was that men like women less tall then they are. Boys yelled at me: “big horse.” 


Being tall made me stand at the back of the row while doing gymnastics (that I loved so much!). When the things to jump over were too low for me, and since I was the only one left [remaining] to jump, the teacher didn’t make an effort to make it higher for me only.


In secondary school I was yelled at by some girls in my class because I was the heaviest. Because of the restimulation I still remember that I weighed sixty-seven kilograms.


As a teenager it became clear to me that men liked me for having good talks with them but not as a woman to fall in love with. It appeared to me that men often chose women who were not so tall, not so large, but preferably tiny and blond.


I have long arms, long legs, and a large shoe size, which always made me leave shops disappointed and angry. Average female sizes were too small for my fully female body! (This is getting better, actually.)


I heard messages about some female athletes having “too much” testosterone and being prevented from continuing with their sports.


Diane worked with me on the question, “Ain’t I a woman?” Later I wondered where this question came from. I found it on the Internet. “Ain’t I a woman?” is from the speech of Sojourner Truth in 1851, in Ohio, USA. That speech makes me cry. It shows how intertwined and mean racism and sexism are. It strikes [impacts] me as a tall woman with muscles. And also, as a woman who grew up on a farm where we worked together doing everything that needed to be done. We didn’t wear make-up. Nice clothes only on Sunday. When I was little, we wore wooden shoes during the week.


Sojourner Truth’s speech in 1851, Ohio:


“. . . Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter [something wrong]. I think that ‘twixt [between] the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix [in trouble] pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?


“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? . . . . ” 


That’s it for now.