We define ourselves by our affiliations. Lately it seems the only affiliations I have are with my children and with the local Realtors Association. Both are completely admirable, er, uh, or at least socially acceptable. (Okay, most people would question the later, but you know what I mean.) I find myself in desperate need of something more than this and I am entertaining the notion of starting another book club/ gardening club/knitting club/ writing club; something where I can indulge my nerdy habits outside the scope of kids and work with women roughly my own age. This thought is permeating my very core right now, to the extent that I almost wet myself the other night, when at GNO, Kim suggested we start a monthly dinner-and-a-movie club, called First Friday Club.
I lay in bed that night battling my insomnia, watching t.v., when on the History Channel aired and episode of “Gangland.” The narrator on the show said, “A gang is loosely defined as a ‘group comprised of individuals held together by their own shared incapacities.’” The vague description certainly got my attention. Fascinating. What makes my women’s knitting group different than, say, the Crips or the Bloods?
My former stitch-n-bitch club was made up largely of women who were social rejects at one stage or other in our lives. We’d get together and knit, for crying out loud! How anti-social is that? My good friend Stacie started her very own roller derby league made up of social outcasts of a more assertive sort. (She said the initiations are brutal.) And the eco-warrior-feminist book club I belonged to in Spokane? Yeah…you get the picture.
As the saying goes, birds of a feather… We all are gang members in one way or another. The mentality exists within all of us. i.e. The Gotta-Do-Better-Than-the-Joneses. Soccer Moms. Fraternities. Sororities. Women of the Red Hat Society. We all flock together in an effort to justify our own behaviors (whether anti-social or not is to be debated) and to validate our individual needs for unconditional love and affection.
Well, I’ve decided to forge ahead with this idea of starting my own woman’s gang, er, social club. I am just nervous about who to recruit. Since I moved back to Idaho four years ago, I have reconnected with some old friends, made some new ones and I love hanging out with them, only I don’t hang out with them “together,” as in “a group.” I would love to invite my bible friends to a roller-derby match, say. I want to bring them all together and see what happens.
I can just see it now: The Bible Girls and the Book Club girls verbally duke-ing it out over the punch bowl, which happens have been spiked by a member of the roller-derby group. And the Soccer Moms are huddling in the corner, discussing how great their kids are, how rich their husbands are and how perfect their lives are.
Just kidding! While it makes for an interesting scene, I don’t believe there would be any gang rivalry with my group! The women I hang with are confident in who they are as a person, in what they believe and where they stand. They aren’t threatened by another’s view point, but welcome it, if for nothing else than discussion’s sake, which, I believe, answers my own question…The difference between my women’s social club and a street gang boils down to one thing: self-image.
A gang member from any street gang would fall flat on his face left without his homeys to back him up. He must run with the crowd because it is the core of his identity.
Whereas, any woman from my social club could stand on her own two feet ~and often does so, in fabulous shoes might I add. She commands respect without being aggressive or violent and looks good while doing it. She meets up with us, the other female “gang members” to revive her spirit, rejuvenate her mind, re-fuel her femininity, to express her individuality within a group who unconditionally loves and respects her for who she is.
Ah… I love being a strong woman, and I love my strong sisters!
