Owning Your Tough Mind & Tender Heart
Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, during her seven-country tour of Africa, made statements suggesting that women’s rights will be one of her signature platforms. This is a cause for celebration, as women across the globe—and here in America—continue to suffer horrendously and unjustly.
In Strength to Love (1963), Martin Luther King Jr. wrote:
“A French philosopher once said, ‘No man is strong unless he bears within his character antitheses strongly marked.’ The strong man or woman holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. The idealists are usually not realistic, and the realistic are usually not idealistic… But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony. The philosopher Hegel said that truth is found neither in the thesis nor the antithesis, but in an emergent synthesis which reconciles the two. He goes on to say that Jesus often spoke of needing to be as wise as a serpent but as gentle as a dove.”
Secretary Clinton, as both a woman and a national leader, embodies this “tough mind and tender heart.” Her focus on the atrocities committed against women in the Congo, for instance, highlights her strength, compassion, and commitment to justice. She has risen to one of the highest leadership positions in our country without forgetting that women everywhere need help, education, healthcare, and, most importantly, a voice.
Women are often criticized for being “too tough,” as Clinton has been, while men are praised for the same qualities. But I believe women are uniquely suited for leadership roles because of their diverse backgrounds—balancing professional careers, childbearing and rearing, and managing households. These experiences don’t hinder their ability to lead—they enhance it.
Women are naturally equipped to balance a “tough mind and a tender heart.”
King contrasted the “tough-minded” individual, who thinks critically and challenges tradition, with the “soft-minded,” who fears change and is easily influenced by superstition and the media. Yet, King warned that without a tender heart, the tough-minded can become cold and detached, treating people as mere cogs in the machine of life.
Today, women across the globe are embracing King’s concept of “nonviolent resistance” as they seek freedom from oppression. This resistance—a perfect fusion of toughness and compassion—opposes injustice while maintaining love for the perpetrators of the system. Just as King’s “walk for freedom” led to desegregation in Montgomery, women everywhere must join arms and take action against the injustices that continue to plague women around the world.
*image is a yoga session for young Afghan women I taught in December 2008; these women had suffered immensely under the Taliban rule, and for many of them, this was their first introduction to yoga. Many of the young ladies did not want to be photographed for security fears, so our photo was taken of only a few of the women. The founder of IEAW, Paula Nirschel, is also included in the front row of this photograph.
