Women and men are not equal, saying that we are, is like saying that a lemon is equal to a watermelon. They’re both fruits, but that’s all they really have in common.

Yes, I did just say that. Now that it’s out there, I will say that we balance each other. Where one is weaker, the other is stronger. We are parallel in many ways, but we don’t stand on level ground. Our resting pulse, as it were, isn’t the same. We are, in so many important ways, so vastly different in outlook and thinking that we aren’t even on the same planet. Saying that we aren’t equal is fair.

That is not to say that we shouldn’t be looked at as equal partners in life, employment or society. We should and we must. The majority of problems we face on our world are due to the fact that women and men are not viewed as balanced partners. Women get a rotten deal in this world, and our Western society seems to not give a damn. Have you ever noticed that, when insulting a man, it’s always done by comparing him to something feminine or by insulting his mother?? Pussy, son of a bitch, bastard; all of those things are insulting to women or comparing him to women’s parts. How about, “you throw like a girl,” or “you run like a girl,” or “you screamed like a little girl?” Again, it’s all comparing men to women in a negative way. Hel, ladies, we do it, too. We participate in it.

What about what we do to each other? Shit, that’s worse because we should be on the same team. We look at women and say stupid shit, not about their actions or what they stand for, but about what they’re wearing or the style of their hair. I’ve seen columns about how Hillary Clinton made a brilliant speech, and all the stupid writer could talk about was how fucking dowdy she looks. Have we actually made so little progress? Have we let the patriarchy infect us so much that we rip each other apart for them?

We’ve bought into it, women. We bought into it. Feminism has failed and we did it to ourselves.  We allowed the men to set the rules for the game and we did nothing to change it. We have decided that in order to be considered equal, we have to be just like the system we fought against. We dress like them, we act like them, and we put up with the crap because we want to be equal. We can’t be equal until we grow penises, and I really don’t want to go that far into the enemy’s camp. Do you?

I am a Heathen. I am proud to be a Heathen woman. I have been told, by idiots, that Heathenism is for men, because the Vikings were Manly Men who went about killing people and stealing things. Okay, I’ll give them that. Some Norse men did go a’Viking, they did kill and steal. They fought battles and did heroic things. The Sagas are full of stories like that. It was their job.

What the Sagas don’t tell you is about the women weaving the cloth so the men didn’t freeze those massive balls off. They don’t tell you about the women healing the men that stupidly didn’t get out of the way of arrows and the pointy ends of swords. They don’t tell you about women working their butts off to store food for the winter, so when those manly men came home from the wars, they didn’t die of starvation. They don’t tell you about women giving birth and caring for the next generation or of burying loved ones.

All of those things were done by women. It’s time to reclaim our heritage, ladies. It’s time to stop being silent and letting the men have all the credit. Sure, they did great things, and built monuments. They didn’t do it alone; they just did the heavy lifting. Without women, they wouldn’t have had the time. They would have been busy trying to feed and clothe themselves.

It’s time to reclaim our religion and our magic. They aren’t going to just give it back to us. They’re going to fight us for it, if for no other reason than they are Manly Men, and that’s just what they do.

Women are not helpless creatures, unable to take care of themselves, any more than men are. We can be judged, not by our looks, but our accomplishments. We have a lot to be proud of. Women’s work helped build the world.