As women; we are often taught to be nurturers, care takers and healers. We are also taught to put the needs of others before our own. It becomes apparent that the load must be twice as heavy; if you happen to be Black, Indigenous and people of color (BI POC). At any rate, most of us haven’t been taught nearly enough about what it means to set boundaries. This is needed to establish mutual respect and is the foundation for most relationships.
Cultural conditioning discourages boundary setting, until one is forced to from some painful circumstance and this day of reckoning doesn’t arrive late. According to All About Love: New Visions by Bell Hooks, “Many women do not learn to set boundaries until they have already been hurt, until they have already sacrificed their emotional well-being on the altar of pleasing others.” The ability to say no is a luxury that hasn’t been afforded to many marginalized communities.
What I propose is that this kind of emotional disaster preparedness doesn’t take place at the pillars of society like in education, government or media; since we don’t live in a prevention-based society. If it is not learned from our Grandmothers and Mothers simply because they never learned, then we become extremely vulnerable, as women. What this makes us is a self-fulfilling prophecy; cursed- coasting down an inevitable path of intergenerational brokenness.
The desire to be loved can sometimes outweigh or override our rational sense of what’s in our best interest. The author continues, “We learn early on that our capacity to be loved is linked to our willingness to give up parts of ourselves, to make ourselves smaller, quieter, more accommodating.” Being taught that love comes with conditionality can be devastating. Setting boundaries shouldn’t make anyone less lovable; it should mean that they maintain a reservoir of intimacy instead of being depleted from self-sacrificing.
At some point, we have to stop blaming ignorance and step up to the podium of accountability; especially when we think of the future of our daughters. Ways to become more empowered include reading, attending workshops or getting involved with our community centers; broadening that base from, which we work. Being armed with tools means that we become responsible for our choices and how we respond to situations; taking power back from structural neglect.
What we walk away with is the fact that we are all we’ve got and we have a right to define the type of relationships that we want for our ourselves. In fact, it becomes our right to experience a love that isn’t prescribed by others. Furthermore, we are defined by how we treat ourselves and teach others how to treat us. We cannot sustain the ball dropping on the radicalness of preservation; making survival an act that necessitates personal sovereignty.