What Women’s Rights Mean to Me: Beyond Wins, Into Resilience
On election night it's no wonder my brain is going down an existential rabbit hole.
There’s a quiet power in resilience, a force that holds you steady, toes hanging over the cliff’s edge, daring you to trust that you won’t fall. This isn’t the polished resilience of glamorous success stories; it’s the bruised, weary resilience that weathers the raw edges of being a woman who refuses to stay silent. For me, women’s rights aren’t simply about societal progress—they’re about enduring, enduring when we’re told to stand still and fit into another’s vision, about carrying the weight of others’ words and finding the strength to shake them off and redefine our path.
As women, we often mirror others from the time we’re infants. We take on their words, their judgments, carrying them like invisible armor. But what happens when we mirror the wrong people? When those reflections tell us we’re less than we are? It becomes all too easy to wear those words until they weigh down our spirit. The journey of reclaiming our power is learning to let that armor fall away, to stand exposed but unbroken, to build something of our own from the dust.
One of my favorite things about myself is my resilience—the way I let myself shatter for a moment after a blow, giving myself that space, then rising again, hands busy with creation. I’ll build a website. I’ll start a company. The most empowering thing I can do is build, keep striving forward, never settling in the cracks left by someone else’s limitations.
In Hollywood, being a woman, especially one with beauty, a brain, and a voice, is a dangerous combination. I’ve had to navigate a world where smiles linger a beat too long, where stares burn, and where I had to sit in silence, often polite and “appropriate,” because speaking up would have marked me as difficult, even dangerous. I’ve worked with men who were praised publicly and predatory privately. I could have spoken out, but I know the price. In an industry that still fears women with voices, it would have been too easy to be cast out, a pariah labeled as money-hungry, bitter, or difficult.
How long can we stifle our truths? Women aren’t equal yet, though we’re inching closer. And when we’re loud about our rights and our power, the world sometimes trembles, torn between fear and fascination. Hollywood, in particular, likes its women silent, their voices stripped down to a whisper, “hungry” but only for the roles offered, to stay locked in place. But I’m a work in progress, and I’ve learned to embrace the monsters that chase me. Those battles have taught me one undeniable truth: I only have myself to rely on, to lift me up, and that’s where my greatest strength lies.
What does it mean to be empowered? For me, it’s not about applause or recognition. It’s the quiet resilience that whispers, “Keep going,” the courage to stand, exposed and unyielding, as I create a life and a legacy that is truly my own.