Roxy Hudson
Women everywhere are finding their voice and empowering each other to do the same. By focusing on themselves and not relying on others to feel entitled, females across the globe are gaining their independence. This is evident through female entrepreneurs founding billion-dollar companies and single mothers raising families on their own. This girl-power can be seen throughout society and even deep into nature.
Charlie, a female Komodo dragon who independently chose to live in the Chattanooga Zoo in Tennessee, embraced her femininity and became the first of her species to give birth without a male partner. Although being partnered with a mate a few months before the three births, a DNA test was able to confirm that Charlie did not need a man to reach her goals.
This simple act of producing three hatchlings without a dominant man has inspired young reptiles throughout the zoo and across the globe to take matters into their own claws.
After hearing about Charlie and her female independence, Ellie, a chameleon at the Chattanooga Zoo took to twitter to explain all that Charlie has done for her.
“My mate, Mel always gets on my case about cleaning up our exhibit. I usually just apologize and do it to please him but after I heard about Charlie, I decided to let him do it for once because he is always the one making a mess anyways. So, I yelled at him until I was blue in the face (I wasn’t even standing next to something blue, I was just very passionate) and he finally took some responsibility and cleaned up after himself. I have the power in this relationship now, and it feels so good! Thanks Charlie!” @ChamELLIEon14 said on twitter.
This attitude of self-reliance is apparent throughout the hundreds of exhibits within the zoo and has spread beyond the scaly creatures to all the other animals nearby.
“I witnessed Mary the chimp opening a home-FURnishing business where she and a few other female monkeys redecorate other monkey exhibits and take their pay in bananas. I can tell they are very successful because of all the banana peels lying all around their exhibit. The monkeys use rocks, sticks, banana peels (conveniently), and anything else they can find to make furniture and other decor. This is some serious WOMONkey-Power if you ask me!” self-proclaimed Chattanooga Zoo animal-whisperer, Annie Maltakker said.
Charlie and her three children, Onyx, Jasper and Flint are working towards inspiring even more females around the zoo to embrace their independence and rely solely on themselves. With this mind-set, Charlie took another big step to embrace her self-reliance by renaming her babies to prove that she doesn’t need the zoo-keepers to control her by naming the children she, and only she, gave birth to.
Charlie has been very influential to the female creatures of the Chattanooga Zoo, inspiring them to ignore the obnoxious visitors and their own male mates. The vertebrate and recent mother has a lot riding on her backbone but is looking forward to expanding this movement, starting with creating her own twitter account.
“Hello woman-imals, this is Charlie from the Chattanooga Zoo. After many requests, I have finally created a twitter account and am looking forward to posting my motivational speeches and inspiring stories from fellow females (link in bio to send in your story). Thank you everyone for following me and embracing your femininity!” @CharWOmander1 said.
