Women Are the Source, Not the Punchline

“It is not inclusive to sit silent while people mock the beauty and humanity of women. That is not progress—it is plain old misogyny. The same misogyny that women and girls endure every day in toxic relationships, the same bullying girls face in schools, the same cruelty women suffer under fascist or terrorist regimes. There is nothing new or liberating about it.”

— Tonya GJ Prince

Mocking women isn’t clever. It’s the cheapest trick in the book.
But lifting women up? That’s artistry. That’s soul work. That’s where creation takes its first breath.

Nothing was there until we birthed it.

When you look at culture—the language, the rhythms, the fashion, the movements—you’ll notice a pattern: women were there first.  We built it. We bent our backs to shape it. We polished it with sweat, song, and sorrow. For that we deserve the utmost respect.

Yet too often, others borrowed it, watered it down, or turned it into parody. Sniggling and giggling. Like it is funny.

Over magic that they can’t recreate if they were given the parts and tools.

What mocking really does

• It tells women they are visible only when exaggerated.

• It reduces the complexity of womanhood into props and punchlines.

• It avoids the deeper truth: that women’s power is unsettling because it is undeniable.

But here’s what they don’t say out loud: mocking women is boring because it has nothing new to offer. Women keep birthing newness. Women keep carrying culture forward. And the mockers? They’re just recycling what we already gave them.

The Fire of Honoring Women

To honor women is to recognize the origin and the future at once.

• Every dance craze has a mother.

• Every fashion trend has a foremama.

• Every new slang has a sister circle where it was first spoken.

The world rarely gives women credit, but women have never needed permission to shine. We are the blueprint and the remix, the archive and the prophecy.

Survivor Affirmations: Women Are the Source

1. I am not the caricature—I am the creator.

2. My brilliance cannot be mocked out of existence.

3. I am the blueprint others borrow from, the rhythm others dance to, the style others imitate.

4. No performance can erase the fact that women have always been the origin of culture.

5. When I honor women, I honor the source of my own power.

6. Mockery withers, but truth multiplies. And the truth is: women carry the culture.

7. I walk in the knowing that my existence is not a joke but a legacy.

8. My power is not a costume—it is my birthright.

9. I am both the foundation and the future. No stage lights can dim that truth.

10. Every time I rise, I prove that honoring women is the only performance worth repeating.