Why Jenkins Got It All Right in Wonder Woman-Spoiler Free

It is hard for me to put into words what Wonder Woman means to me, and what I felt to see her brought to life before me. You cannot belittle it to just a “girl power” night out for the ladies. Honestly, it is something very hard to explain to those who do not walk our journey.

She is our freedom. She is our freedom from every shackle of every stereotype, every boundary, every obstacle, every “No, you can’t do that.” This includes the shackles we have accepted, and even closed, and locked, on our own spirits.

She is our hope. She is our hope that we can rise above our shackles and constraints, recognize our true nature is found inour strength beyond measure, our limitless endurance, our infinite capacity for love. Our hope that when women rise in unity, as sister-warriors, as spirit Amazons, we are unstoppable. Our hope that our daughters, our daughters around the world, will be set free when their mothers and grandmothers rise to protect them, and say in one voice, “No more!”

She is our future. She is our future when we teach our daughters, a little more each generation, to reject the urge to darken your light just to conform to those who fear our power. When we teach them their purpose is not to be a clothes hanger, or a blow up doll, and to reject that their worth is found only in someone else’s eyes, and in their acceptance. She is our future when we teach our daughters their destiny; their mission and their purpose is to embrace their power, and change the world. This includes the mission to free their sisters from sex slavery, war rape, child marriage, FGM, dowry murders, honor killings, and all the other ways women and girls are brutalized around the globe.

She is our destiny. She is our destiny when we finally realize that our power can save the world; our power to love, to heal, to nurture, to place others above ourselves as we feel the pain of others as our own. When we realize that we are the life bringers, the teachers, the healers and that we, WE, sisters, are the shapers of this world. We raise the sons who become the men of tomorrow. Men who can right the wrongs of centuries; men that we can set free from their own shackles of conformity; men we can set free to find their strength in the power of love. We can teach them to be brave and courageous, not only in battle, but in gentleness and compassion. Men like Steve, who can teach our sons that the true honor of manhood is not found in controlling women, but in respecting their separate journey, even if you do not understand it. Like Steve, men who can teach our daughters and sons that the power of love will call you to a moment when you must decide for the greater good over self. Some of us have known these men in our lives. Some of us have never known these men, but sisters, we can raise these men.

I cried when I saw Themyscira before me, and when I saw my Amazons, MY Amazons, that lived in every heart cry of my child self, and whose powerful vision of womanhood took root in the painful awareness of a little girl who once asked why I couldn’t be a boy. My mother said, “Why do you want to be a boy?” I answered in that pivotal moment of every girl’s growing up, that moment interlaced with grief, defeatism, and brutal awareness that all little girls face and know, “Because they have all the power.”

I cried when I saw her in her full armor, determined to end suffering where she saw it. I cried because I saw our power, I saw OUR strength. I cried because we, my sisters, do not know it. But even Diana didn’t know her true power, her true mission, until she let go of her limiting beliefs, and embraced all the truth, even though it hurt, and came in such a painful way, as truth often does. Our pain often brings us clarity. Our suffering often gives us focus.

Jenkins got it right. She got it right in all the filmmaker ways, and she will give J.J. Abrams reason to fear losing his crown. Above that, Jenkins got it right in a much more important way. Like a coded message that you can only decipher with a spiritual Enigma machine, she spoke our truth, she told our story, and she sent a message to her sisters, “You are what you believe.” As Diana rose into the sky, with full and climactic knowledge of herself, her strength, her destiny, and in the power of love, so we must rise, sisters, and know and believe in our strength, our power and our destiny.

We must change the world. We need only believe.

For peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. - Baruch Spinoza

"Keep faith.Trust to love. Fight with honor, but fight to win".- Wonder Woman