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The Women that Inspire Me       Throughout my course in English 217, I have read an intense amount of reading material that existed around powerful, passionate, and tragic women that have proven through writing and exposing their secrets for the world to bear. This is for them.     I have read so many books this semester that it’s hard for me to pinpoint specific writers who have truly changed my thought and made me realize I should embrace the person who I am. I think that three writers who have really done that for me are Sapphire (author of Push), Dorothy Allison (author of Two or Three Things I Know for Sure,) and Eve Ensler (author of I’m an Emotional Creature.) All have inspired me as a woman, and have taught me to embrace the person I am and my thoughts/ feelings, yet in different ways.     I’ll start with Sapphire, author of Push. This book was so disturbing yet beautiful, and tells the tale of an extremely obese young black woman who was raped by her father, delivered his two children, and lives with a mother that verbally and physically abuses her. Precious, her name, is also illiterate and starts a special school program with other girls to learn how to read and write. Throughout the book, I could never imagine going through what Precious had to go through. One specific part is when Precious is discussing her improved TABE test grade for reading and writing. Sapphire writes on page 139, “I know I can do this. I still got time.” Despite everything that has happened to her, she continues to keep on pushing, like the book title, and continues to improve her life and be a better example of a mother to her two children than her own mother was, something I find incredibly inspiring, especially at her age of sixteen. That shows true courage to me.     Another example is Dorothy Allison, author of Two or Three Things I Know for Sure. While her story is slightly different, she grew up with men who physically and mentally abused their women, often making them feel ugly and worthless in the South. Allison grew up with an abusive stepfather and became a lesbian in her later years. On one specific page, Allison writes on page 70 that “I am the only one who can tell the story of my life and say what it means… I did not want to wear that coat, to be told what it meant, to be told how it had changed the flesh, to let myself be made over into my rapist’s creation. Two or Three things I know for sure… I would rather go naked than wear he coat the world has made for me.” Those are pretty powerful words! Based on this statement, despite all the hurtful words and feelings of worthlessness that Allison endured (her male family members calling her ugly or a bitch or abusing her) she finally says, “Enough!” This had such an impact on me particularly because I often feel I do things or worry about matters in terms of pleasing others. By reading this, it taught me to not. It taught me to be proud of who I am and to embrace the world full on… as well as myself by not trying to be anyone else.     My last example is Eve Ensler’s I’m an Emotional Creature. In the introduction, it says “It’s a call for us to join girl’s resistance to turning their backs on one another and themselves… a story about manhood and womanhood that belies in the fact that, as humans, we are ALL emotional creatures.” This speaks to me, because Ensler particularly makes it okay for woman to have a voice, something still forgotten in today’s society. Through Ensler, possibilities are endless for women, and women do have a voice, making men and women alike in the sense we are all vulnerable, powerful, thoughtful people.      These women inspired me and made me realize despite who I am as a woman, I can do anything. And I can change the world perhaps one day through exposing my thoughts and feelings, despite the outlet. I think that is a huge part as to what the writers in this class were stating.