Mamisma. What a great word.
It was coined by publisher Harriet Rubin, author of The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women and Soloing: Realizing Your Life’s Ambition, and can best be described as the energy a mother bear has when she senses her cubs are in danger – and action taken not out of vengeance but out of the urge to provide for and protect future generations. According to Rubin, it is “femininity defined by mature and maternal qualities.”
Those maternal qualities need not mean bearing and raising children, or even being a woman for that matter. They are generative and creative. Women, and anyone else possessing this feminine strength, can continue to exercise this sort of power long after child-bearing years are over. Those qualities can be utilized and developed throughout the lifespan.
Mamisma is not about ‘machisma,’ the feminine version of machismo. It is not about having dominion over others – but using one’s heart and smarts to make things better in a sustainable, healthy, happy way. Power is, after all, the “ability to do” and the more one can get done, now and for future generations, the more power-full.
To me, mamisma is about the strength to protect and restore, to make beautiful, and to be strong and confident in bringing more good to the world. It is about taking care of oneself as well as others. Beyond putting on your own oxygen mask first, it is about getting what you want and need so as not to feel one iota deprived or resentful in then assisting, promoting or supporting others. It is about being willing to win and let others win, too – and finding resolutions that allow for both, rather than compromising.
It is a word to describe feminine power wielded by either gender, but it is especially important to women. Our ‘power-struggle’ – at least in the U.S.A. – has been going on since the 1960′s; though truly it has been going on seemingly for centuries.
Gloria Feldt argues that it is time that women embrace their power - so we move beyond “justify[ing] our lack of progress by pointing outward,” rather than taking responsibility to move things courageously forward; and so we can really get to a point where women lead both themselves and others with intention toward fulfilment of human potential for now and future generations.
When we as women can fully embrace the type of power with which we are naturally endowed, and its importance, the sooner we can shift the world in more nurturing, growing, developing, just and innovative ways.
The world needs more of that. How can we support you in your exercise of that power?
Cheers, Dolly