She Persisted Project

She Persisted - Kristi McManus

The 'She Persisted' movement started as a political one. An effort to deter an individual not fit for a seat of power by a strong willed woman who refused to be silent.

The actions of Elizabeth Warren, while directed mainly at the political stage, started a cry across the globe, especially in the United States, that bridged across countless platforms. Female empowerment took the statement as a rally cry, attaching it to the countless efforts of women who refused, like Warren, to sit down and be silent as their male counterparts would prefer. Those who tried to stifle Warren through their choice of words found it backfiring in a cataclysmic way, turning it now into the feminist motto of breaking barriers and empowerment.

Those two words, 'she persisted', can be applied to endless actions of women all over the world. But for me, personally, my immediate thought is my mother.

For my entire life, she persisted. Through an abusive marriage, through depression, through countless other things that should have broken her down, she continued forward. She was the strong one, the capable one; the one who could soothe my pain one moment, and build a barn the next. She knew no limits based on her gender; learning at her father's hand in trades, she could work alongside the best of men, and better them.

I never put much thought into her being the atypical woman figure when I was a child. She would be out on the farm, building a kennel, a barn, or training our show horses, before coming in and cooking dinner, making my lunches, and putting me to bed. I thought this gender transition was a normal thing, and I am thankful for her example. Because even when all these stressors tried to break her down; balancing motherhood, her job, a difficult relationship, and all the other requirements battling for her time and attention...she persisted.

And the day when our lives changed, when she finally had enough and decided to leave the toxic relationship and broke us both down, she showed just how strong she could be. She was leaving everything she knew; her home, her security, and the life she built. She didn't know what would happen, if she could make it on her own, or what was to come, but she did it anyway. She escaped the emotional and mental damage he inflicted every day, and started over. Even as he tried to intimidate her into submission, as he threw things and screamed, she didn't back down.

She persisted.

She is happy now. Finally, for the first time in my entire life, I get to see my mother happy. Her fears were for not, of course. When she left, she didn't know if she could make it, but she did. She kept us both safe, secure and fed. She supported me through college, then university. She built her life over again from nothing, and even

though it took a while, I finally got to see her smile and know it was real. Not forced, not something she had to do; but real.

Now, she owns her own home. She has a man in her life who makes her smile, who supports her as a partner should, and who finally shows her how she should have been treated all these years. Thirty two years of abuse and fear, lead her to him. And while I sometimes ask her if she wishes it had been him all along, she knows that this is how it was supposed to be. Because the trials she went through are why she met him, and finally got to feel what love and support really is.

She was warned by my father, to submit and stay where she was unhappy. She was given an explanation for all his wrongdoings, all the myriad of reasons why we lived in fear for so long.

But nevertheless, she persisted. And it saved us both.