Off on a tangent...Endurance is strength. I'm thinking of the the movie again, but other things also. Historically, men have been pushed to show outward strength, be the warrior. Women were pushed to show inward strength, to endure, have staying power. Now it is more OK for women to be the warrior, and we look down on enduring as being passive and weak - we only value the warrior type of strength. It's not. It's harder. A researcher wanted to know why, when villages were taken by another into slavery, greater numbers of women lived than men. It was assumed that more of the men were killed during battle and that the women were treated better as slaves since the men would want to fuck them. After researching how this currently plays out...more men were killed. But a larger percentage of men than women died after they were made slaves. The women usually received worse physical abuse, less food, and had worse conditions than the male slaves...yet women survived in a great percentage. Why? Because the men would only take so much before they mentally and spiritually gave up and then they died. The women endured...they dug in and no matter what came their way...they endured and some of them rose from the ashes. That is strength too. It isn't flashy, we don't see it as heroic, there are no ballads sung about it. Isn't that a bit sad? Isn't it sad that even other women can't see the value, the worth in that kind of strength? (And to be clear...I'm not talking about staying voluntarily in a bad, evil, or abusive situation)

As another aside...it saddens me that you aren't very excited that you are having a baby boy. I'm not knocking on you one bit, believe me. But you are going to give birth to a human being. That's it. A unique human being who can do great things or horrible things, but will leave a mark upon the world. How he treats others and what he does with his life is what's important - not what gender he is. That is so unimportant. But it can't BE unimportant unless we decide for ourselves that it IS unimportant. And Damn society, damn what they think or do...this is your child...who carries the spark of the Divine within him just as you do.

ok...this is long....and it rambled and is probably not real clear.