I’m reading a book on art, creativity, and commercialism. It’s provided a lot of interesting food for thought. Three quarters of the way through, though, I am frustrated by how seldom women are used as examples. I get it that a discussion based on historical precedent is going to be male-heavy, because women were not allowed to publish or become notable public figures. But I find it tiring to slog through this unbalanced perspective.

Maybe the author will get around to it in the end, but the ultimate act of creativity is performed by women. Only women have the skill and strength needed to grow another human being inside their body––to bring forth, from the material of just two cells, an entirely new person. Each child is a poem, a living sculpture, a work of art. The mother births this child through her own body, protecting and nurturing its long transformation to independence. She then releases her creation into the world, letting it take on a life of its own and transforming humanity by its mere existence.

The ultimate human creation. We are all these works of art.