In a touching post shared to Instagram, actress Halle Berry dedicated Woman Crush Wednesday to women everywhere who’ve suffered abuse. Berry, herself a survivor of domestic violence, wrote, “My #WCW goes to all my QUEENS who have suffered any form of domestic violence.”
Berry went on to quote Philadelphia poet and artist Michael E. Reid: “Dear women, Sometimes you’ll just be too much woman. Too smart, too beautiful, too strong. Too much of something. That makes a man feel like less of a man, which will start making you feel like you have to be less of a woman. The biggest mistake you can make is removing jewels from your crown to make it easier for a man to carry. When this happens, I need you to understand, you do not need a smaller crown… You need a man with bigger hands.”
Last year, Berry shared her experience with domestic violence at the “Imagine” VIP cocktail party to benefit the Jenesse Center, a national domestic violence prevention and intervention organization, saying, “I saw my mother battered and beaten many years of my life and I felt helpless…And that’s what connects me to this organization. I have an understanding, a knowing. I feel like I have something that I can impart to these women. It seems like I’ve overcome it, but I really haven’t. In the quiet of my mind, I still struggle. So while I’m helping these women, I’m helping myself through it, too. And that’s largely why I’m here.”
October is domestic violence awareness month. You can find out more here.
