During Women's History Month, be supportive by bearing witness to each other | Opinion

• Becca Stevens is a speaker, justice entrepreneur, author, priest, and founder and president of Thistle Farms.

Last year, I sat across from a woman who spoke in a dialect I couldn’t understand. But I could recognize the timbre of her voice, and the tears that flowed down the etched lines on her skin.

While she knitted, through an interpreter she told her story in pieces of fleeing the war and violence in Ukraine. 

I’ve heard her story before.

In Oaxaca, Mexico, she is a woman trying to find safety amongst the smugglers.

In a Greek refugee camp, she is a survivor paying hundreds for a vest that will not float in the sea.

In Ecuador, she is a girl raped by an uncle and punished for his actions.

In Botswana, she is a young mother fleeing an abusive husband and abandoned by her family.

In Nashville, she is a teen who takes shelter with a drug dealer while hiding from her stepfather.

In North Carolina, she is a woman who chooses to leave her pimp and is shot three times.

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Support each other by bearing witness

This year, it is my hope that we honor the women who have told the same story in a hundred different languages: how they were used as commodities, abused, ignored, and silenced.

While these stories of violence, sexual assault, poverty and trauma are alarmingly similar, the individual experiences in each one matter.

After decades of work with women survivors, I believe one of the simplest but most powerful ways we can support one another is to bear witness. Bearing witness means listening to a story again and again. It is seeing the woman in front of you, nodding along as you recognize parts, weeping together, and believing together this story can have a better ending for other women, and future generations.  

This is how we love one another as we tackle injustice, challenge marketplaces, and offer spaces of freedom. In bearing witness, we can learn to love the world one person and one story at a time. Learning to love this way takes our whole lives.

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Raise our arms in solidarity

Let’s celebrate Women’s Month by responding to insidious injustice with unstoppable love and hope.  

As the woman sitting across from me continued to knit, she talked about her loss and fears. “If I only keep knitting,” she told me, “maybe I can make it in the bunker through the winter. When you share my story, tell them that knitting is a sign of hope, and that hope is my survival.” 

When she set her knitting down, through an interpreter I asked, "What more can any one person do?" She offered me a disarming smile and began to sing. Soon 10 more refugee women joined along, heads leaning back, arms held up in defiance. 

No matter the language spoken, everyone in the room knew this song and we raised our arms in solidarity. This was love, the best we can do. 

I hope you will raise your hand and sing along. Deep down, we all know the words. We have heard it before.  

Becca Stevens is a speaker, justice entrepreneur, author, priest, and founder and president of Thistle Farms. She has been featured on PBS NewsHour, The Today Show, CNN, ABC World News, named a CNN Hero, and White House Champion of Change, holds five honorary doctorates, and raised over $75 million in funding for justice initiatives. Drawn from 25 years of leadership in mission-driven work, Becca leads important conversations across the country with an inspiring message that love is the strongest force for change in the world.