I am woman – hear me roar

Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.
— Winston Churchill

I am Woman is the title of a Helen Reddy and Ray Burton song that was a smash hit at some time in the 1970s. According to Helen, she felt the key lyrics of the song were divinely inspired as they kept coming to her. She also said she had sensed she was chosen to get the message across.

‘Hear me roar’, is the second sentence in the song — equally powerful as the first.

In an interview published in a Sunday Magazine in Australia in 2003, Helen said,
‘I couldn’t find any songs that said what I thought being woman was about. I thought about all these strong women in my family who had gotten through the Depression and world wars . . . But there was nothing in music that reflected that . . .’

So, with Ray Burton, she created this classic song that carried a message and resonated with millions, worldwide.

No matter where we were originally from, or what culture we were born in, and regardless of skin colour, we are all likely to discover some amazingly strong women in our individual family histories — if we are lucky enough to have had the stories passed down over the generations. Pioneer women endured long voyages on sailing ships, often with babies and toddlers in tow, packed in steerage for months, and having to cope as best they could. They eventually arrived in a new and foreign land, without a town in sight, and may have initially lived in tents, or crude A-Frame structures. Many of their children died young. Their husbands were often taken, too — killed in exploration, the 1918 influenza pandemic, or world wars. Children may have lost a parent, and lived to overcome it — managing as best they could with love and courage. Suffragettes were there too, with their names boldly recorded in national archives as part of our history for evermore. Families with backbone. Strong, resilient, stoic, brave, courageous men, women and children.

This particular article today though, is in tribute to the strong women in our families.

And now, here we are, in 2023, in the aftermath of one of New Zealand’s most shameful days in history, where a woman from the UK, known as Posie Parker, was to speak on behalf of women at an open event at Albert Park in Auckland. Her main message appears to be that women have a right to be respected as women, including the right to have women’s sport, without having to try to compete with men who have transitioned and are known as women, yet still retain the strength of a man; the right for women to have their own toilets and changing rooms, and the right to be known as the women they are, rather than some sort of body part.

Posie Parker was assaulted before she began and the event had to be called off as what looked like a “rent-a-crowd” moved in to attack some women and also made it impossible to hear the speaker. According to eye witness accounts, the police didn’t move out the trouble-makers, but waited until the last minute to usher the speaker out, who by this time had been assaulted. Part of the mob spat on her, as well as the police car she was ushered into.

What a despicable display of intolerance. Cancel-culture on steroids.

In the human body each cell normally contains 23 pairs of chromosomes. There are 22 pairs that look the same between the female body and the male body. The 23rd pair of chromosomes (the sex chromosomes) differ, as the female body has two x chromosomes, while the male body has one x and one y chromosome. Nothing anyone says will change those basic facts.

No WEF plan, no NWO plan, and no other propaganda can remove that factual information.

However, there are men who have expressed they feel more like women and women who have expressed they feel more like men. That is entirely their business and, of course, they can be whoever they decide to be, but that doesn’t give anyone the right to shout out and obliterate the right of free speech including, of course, free speech for women.

But was the shocking footage of what transpired at Albert Park really what this was about?

Or should we be looking for those behind the scenes who are goading Kiwis to attack fellow-Kiwis, and shout down differing views, while resorting to mayhem and violence, and feeding disharmony through carefully chosen words — repeated over and over — words designed to inflame? If so, shouldn’t we be working together to find exactly who the hidden manipulators are? And exactly who is fanning the flames?

Who wins by creating division among us? Who is engineering chaos and acrimony? Who is promoting it? Who is prodding others into a frenzy of such intolerance? Were any protestors being paid? Have they been told lies? Who are the sponsors? Are the media using inflammatory descriptions? Are they slanting the stories into propaganda to create outrage? Or could this possibly be a diversionary tactic?

It’s textbook, 1984, by George Orwell. It’s a highway to that dystopian world, which surely no New Zealander would want to step foot in.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belabouring
those problems which divide us. — President John Kennedy

However, women have worked too long and too hard to have the rights of women destroyed. And that includes new terms like “chest-feeding” instead of breast-feeding and all the other WEF, NWO, WHO, “newly invented phrases”, and any other tip-toeing around whatever gender you may or may not decide to be. Be it, if you so choose.

But don’t try to shout down women in the process, or take who they are from them.

So, this song celebrates women. I celebrate women, too. And men. And all — whoever they may decide to be — who have the grace to ensure that free speech remains sacrosanct as an intrinsic, unshakeable basic right to every living soul.

I am Woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back and pretend. . .
‘Cos I’ve heard it all before
And I’ve been down there on the floor
No one’s ever gonna keep me down again

Oh yes, I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong
I am invincible
I am woman.

You can bend but never break me
‘cos it only serves to make me
more determined to achieve my final goal
And I come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
‘cos you’ve deepened the conviction in my soul.

Oh yes, I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I’ve gained.
If I have to I can do anything
I am strong
I am invincible
I am woman.

I am woman watch me grow
See me standing toe to toe
As I spread my lovin’ arms across the land
But I’m still an embryo with a long, long, way to go
Until I make my brother understand.

Oh yes, I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I’ve gained.
If I have to,
I can face anything
I am strong
I am invincible
I am woman . . .

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope . . . those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance . . . That is the source of all greatness in all societies, and it is the key to progress in our time. — Robert F. Kennedy.

By Mary Hobbs. All images © Mary Hobbs.