the strong women summit
by lisa sarasohn

“Everyone I see has a smile on their face,” the man standing in front of the fieldstone fireplace remarked as I walked by on my way to the lakeside porch. “What am I missing?”

The answer was obvious: Estrogen.
On this weekend in mid-November, Cat Noxon and I were guests at the Mohonk Mountain House, an elegant Victorian castle set within a forest preserve in upstate New York. We were attending the Strong Women Summit sponsored by Stonyfield Farm and other woman-friendly businesses. My contest-winning words on Cat’s dedication to personal and environmental health, an essay titled “A Self-Made Woman,” equipped us with an all-expense paid trip to the Summit.

The Summit drew four hundred women together to explore the many dimensions of women’s strength as well as the links between self-care and community activism.
The conference grew out of a partnership between Miriam Nelson and Gary Hirshberg. A Tufts University professor with particular interest in women’s fitness, Miriam is the author of Strong Women Stay Young and other best-selling books on strength training. Gary is the CEO of Stonyfield Farm, distributing high-calcium dairy and soy products nationwide, as well as a leader in promoting environmentally and socially conscious business models.

As the Summit began on Friday evening, we were invited to play “Have You Ever?” The guidelines are simple: You stand up and ask the crowd “Have you ever…?”filling in the blank with whatever you choose, however outrageous or extraordinary. There’s only one catch: You must already have been through that experience yourself. Once you ask the question, those who have had a similar experience stand up with you.
We quickly got a sense of who was in the room. One woman asked, “Have you ever been in a situation in which you had to drink your own breast milk?” Three or four women stood. Another asked, “Have you ever gone to jail for something you believe in?” About twenty women stood, including the woman sitting next to me. Nina Utne, publisher of Utne Magazine, had been arrested at a Code Pink demonstration protesting the war against Iraq.

Next, we paired up to share two stories—how we had demonstrated strength in our own lives and how we had made a difference in someone else’s life. My partner told me how she had helped a friend tell her family that she had an eating disorder.
Through the course of the weekend, the sheer fact of women being together and affirming ourselves put a smile on many faces. The celebration continued through workshops on Saturday morning and afternoon, with topics ranging from “Bringing Our Values to Work” to “Building Strong Children” to “The Joy of Stress.” There were also opportunities to take part in strength training, yoga, and exercise classes with prominent women athletes.

Erin Brockovich—the woman whose investigation held Pacific Gas and Electric accountable for the harm caused by its toxic waste—spoke after lunch on Saturday. She spoke about the values of honesty, integrity, and self-esteem that she had learned from her parents. She emphasized the importance of “stick-to-it-iveness.”
And she spoke in her trademark earthy, straight-from-the-hip style. Whenever Erin flashed a smile, I had to look around the room to see who had turned the lights up. Here was a woman who was connected to her estrogen indeed.

During the weekend, a table at the wellness expo displayed my just-published book, The Woman’s Belly Book: Finding Your Treasure Within. The book made a perfect fit with the conference: Our body’s center is the source of our inner strength and the powerhouse for our physical and spiritual vitality. Strong women are gutsy women.
The table gave me a chance to speak with many women and listen to their concerns about body size and shape. Once again, I observed the enormous amount of time, energy, and attention women waste in self-hate regarding our appearance.

I came away from the conference on Sunday with this understanding: If we’re going to be out in the open as strong women, we need to address the issue of appearance straight on. We need to know that we’re already beautiful in our own unique ways. We need to know how to make the most of the beauty we already are.
Let’s get this issue of appearance handled; then we can go on to making the world a livable place. I say: Women of the world unite—we have nothing to lose but our shame. When we lose the shame, we discover we already have every strength we need.

Lisa Sarasohn is the author of The Woman’s Belly Book: Finding Your Treasure Within, available at local bookstores and online at loveyourbelly.com. She’s currently strength training by lifting cartons of books onto counters at local shipping companies for nationwide distribution.

Lisa’s essay, “A Self-Made Woman”, is posted at honoringyourbelly.com/inspiration/articles/sws.html