patriciamalay:

Strength in women isn’t a bad thing. Strength demands excellence, bravery, intelligence. It demands reciprocity at its same level or more, otherwise pass it by. It just means these women know their worth and will never settle for less than they deserve.

The world will want to dumb you down and weaken you to a point of complacency and mediocrity in order to fit in and be easily handled. Your job, as a woman, isn’t to be understood. It’s to be authentic, purposed, determined. Not to be confused with impenetrability. Strength is choosing to be vulnerable in the face of all possible outcomes and forging on ahead, standing on firm ground anyway. Strong women hold on to truth and become the barometer for what the world should be and is a sad mirror to what the world actually is. But strong women remain strong because of the hope they cling on to as well.

There is hope for better because it will be. Strong women know this because they’ve been through enough storms to know that even the heaviest of rain clouds are broken through eventually by sunlight. Soon, enough light will shine that strength will be the new normal. In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with being the exception.

Damn straight.

(Source: r-m-o, via playwiththedolls)