Truth does not become false because it becomes unpopular.We all slip into patterns where we forget to be grateful. For many people who prioritize
Truth does not become false because it becomes unpopular.
We all slip into patterns where we forget to be grateful. For many people who prioritize healthy mental wellness, gratitude is a must.
Still, you can live without practicing gratitude. You can carry on and make it through life. But what about ingratitude?
Ingratitude is more than failing to say “thank you.” It is a failure to recognize, honor, or reciprocate sacrifices, gifts, or opportunities that made one’s own life possible. That is pulling the ladder up behind you so that others can’t reach the heights that you did.
In many moral and religious traditions, ingratitude is not just bad manners; it is considered a character flaw because it severs people from memory, humility, and obligation.
Unfortunately, some people who have benefited from collective struggle sometimes become less willing to extend those same protections or opportunities to those who come after them. Some women who rose through female-only opportunities support policies that other women and never consider the women and girls who must live through the weakened protections they advocated for. Its opposite is not simply forgetting to say “thank you.” It is accepting an inheritance while denying the next generation the opportunity to inherit it too.
An inheritance deserves stewardship, not consumption
A woman who earned scholarships, played in female-only leagues, or built a career through opportunities created by generations of women, yet refuses to acknowledge those sacrifices or defend similar opportunities for future girls, may be seen as acting ungratefully. The concern is not simply that she holds a different opinion. It is that she has forgottenâor rejectedâthe obligation that comes with having inherited something precious.
Not every disagreement is ingratitude. People can sincerely disagree about how best to protect women’s sports. The label “ingratitude” becomes more fitting when there is a pattern of disregarding the sacrifices of predecessors, dismissing the concerns of those who stand to lose protections, or treating inherited gains as disposable. The refusal to even acknowledge the concerns of other women and girls.
I’ve written about the refusal to even say “women and girls” in your official statements about women’s and girls’ sports.
Women’s and girls’ sports were not gifted to us by benevolent men. It was fought for. It was a decades-long wresting away from the heavy grip of men hoarding resources.
Every woman stands on ground another woman fought to clear. Women’s sports exist because generations of womenâand many alliesâchallenged exclusion, fought for funding, demanded enforcement of laws, built leagues, accepted lower pay, and often endured ridicule simply for competing. Those gains were not inevitable. They were won through sustained organizing and sacrifice.
Women’s sports were not created because women were welcomed into athletics. They were created because women and girls were systematically excluded, underestimated, and denied opportunities that men already possessed. Every scholarship, roster spot, championship, and professional league exists because women fought institutions that insisted female athletes did not deserve equal investment or recognition.
That history creates a moral obligation that few women and men consider when shoving women and girls aside in spaces and opportunities that were cultivated for them. Those who have benefited from those hard-won gains inherit a responsibility to protect them.
The concern is not merely about disagreement. It is also about stewardship. The question becomes: Will you preserve the conditions that allowed you to succeed, or will you redefine them in ways that may diminish opportunities for girls who come after you?
Girls cannot negotiate with institutions the way adults can. They depend on adults to safeguard the spaces created for them. If adults become unwilling to defend those spaces because they fear criticism or social consequences, then the burden of that decision falls on children who had no voice in making it.
Protecting women and girls is not an act of hostility toward anyone else. A protected category exists because there is a recognized need for protection. A NEED not a desire. A need for boundaries. A need for safety.
Some people misunderstand the phrase common in the women’s movement. Women’s freedom is not an inheritance to spend. It is a trust to preserve. The principle of “lifting as we climb” means refusing to consume the benefits of collective struggle while leaving less for those who follow. It means recognizing that equality is not self-sustaining. You can’t set equality on autopilot. It doesn’t work that way.Â
Freedom survives only where memory is kept alive. Ohhh, people hate the term “stay woke,” but that is the meaning. Defined: Remember. Stay aware. Stay watchful. Do not sleep on the fact that not everyone is pleased with progress. I’ve rarely seen those that support giving away the rights of women and girls acknowledge that there are still many peopleâmen and womenâwho aren’t pleased with the progress that women have made. Nothing would please them more than to have a do-over or rematch where women and girls lose to men and boys. So that they can “stop all of this nonsense” and “do what I say do.”
AND that there are people who are satisfied with it for themselves or for a few others around them but …not for everyone.
Accompanying victims of domestic and sexual violence to court teaches you one thing. Expect the people who once had control over others to fight hard to get it back. When you put an end to people deceiving and manipulating you, prepare yourself. You are about to see some things.
You would think that when rape victims are on the stand testifying, the man in the defendant’s chair would want to appear innocent to the judge and jury. Try to fool people. But very often, you look over, and you see him glaring at the victim on the stand. Trying to regain control.
This is also at the core of stalking and deaths that occur in domestic violence cases. Someone lost control, and they had no idea how to live or where to go from there. If it means that they don’t live anymore or go to prison, they will take that. Because they have not built their character, lives, or mental health to deal with not having control over others.
Every generation must decide whether it will preserve the institutions that expanded women’s opportunities or allow them to erode.
It is neither unreasonable nor hateful to insist that the interests of women and girls remain at the center of discussions about women’s sports. Or about women’s spaces. Or about women’s opportunities.
Gratitude, then, is not merely a feeling. It is an ethic.
It says:
I remember who made this possible.
I tell the truth about their sacrifices.
I refuse to squander what they built.
I leave something stronger for those who come after me.
Gratitude remembers the names and sacrifices that comfort forgot.
Never erase the truth around what women needed to survive. Whatever got you through, other girls and women need that too. No one gets where they are in this world on talent and skill alone. Someone had to pave the way so that people who had been denied fairness and equality were given them. Someone had to make a way. A lot of someones.
The Penthouse Lectures and the Ground Floor Reality – WE Survive Abuse
Friendly Fire: Why Are Women Funding Their Own Erasure? – WE Survive Abuse
Calling Women âHatefulâ for Wanting Safety Is Abuse Dressed in Decorum – WE Survive Abuse