Tag: Girl Power

International Women’s Day

Today is International Women’s Day. We shouldn’t need a day. Every single day should be our day. What would that look like?

Imagine (yeah, I’m stealing from John), imagine we lived in a world where you’d be a hero for going out in  your pink robe and no makeup. You know, sort of like Hef did for years and years and years.

Imagine if while checking out the latest headlines, tabloid news wasn’t as popular, more popular, than what is actually going on in the world. And maybe if the tabs can’t be knocked off the top, we would hear more about Angelina’s work with refugees than we do about if she’s over Brad.

Imagine men worrying about showing up at the beach and if their beer belly is hanging over their bathing suit the way women worry if a stretch mark peeks out or if maybe their tummy isn’t as taut as it once was. And actually I don’t want men to worry about that, but the reality is that they don’t. Let’s be like them.

Imagine that the women who are attending marches are marching even for the women that don’t believe all of the things that they believe, and that they are marching for women to have different opinions, like, as in different, not the same. We don’t have to be cookie cutter. Gross. Why would we ever want that!

Imagine we celebrate the women in our lives, the women who empower us, support us, love us, even the ones that need a little help learning  how to be a friend, because, well, there are a lot of misconceptions out there that women can’t get along, and some women actually believe that. But we can. We do.

Imagine that International Women’s Day didn’t happen once a year. Imagine that we saw the beauty and the value every second of every day. If we did that, we wouldn’t need a march or a day or anything else.

Take a look around you. You know a lot of amazing women. I promise you that. Tell the women in your life how incredible they are. Some may know it. Some may need to hear it. Don’t just do it today though. Do it tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and keep going.

 

 

Girl Power AKA the Power of Girls

I had a friend once who would look at me and say, “if only you could see what I see.” It took me a long time, too long, to see what he did, but I did. Ok, so that’s a little bit of a lie. Sometimes there are days I could use a little reminder, but for the most part no. I get it. I’m pretty awesome.

He taught me to know my worth.

Its a tough thing for many women, too many women. I now have a friend or two that I look at and say, “if only you could see what I see.”

And no. I’m not going to blame men or a male dominated society or any of the other trendy things that are floating out there  about the oppression of women.

I put the blame on women, squarely on women.

We need to be better to ourselves, to each other.  We need to stop the petty bullshit. Well, some of us.

I love women. I know some extraordinary women, many who know their worth, some who don’t.

And the thing is that I love the ones that know their worth. I love how smart and fabulous they are. I spend a great deal of time telling them how much I love them and how amazing they are.

I also love the ones who don’t. I spend a considerable amount of time trying to get them to see what I see.

The whole women can’t be friends line needs to be retired. My world is filled with smart, strong, amazing, incredible women. Real women. True friends. Even the ones that started out as strangers have somehow found their way into an unbelievable circle filled with women that inspire and challenge me regularly.

Knowing all of these exceptional women, whether they know their worth or not, always brings me back to my friend, the one who wanted me to see what he saw. I know my worth. Maybe it took me too long, but I know it. And I look around at all the women in my life and it cements it. Why? Because they are all a reflection of my worth. And, hey, if I’m to be judged by the company I keep, well, I’m pretty freakin fabulous!

We, women, have come so far, even in my lifetime. We can do anything and be anything. Yes, one day one of us will even become President.

For now though let’s take a good look at ourselves and love what we see in the mirror. No, not the fabulous make-up job or great hair, but the person we see. Let’s see what our friends see when they look at us, and let’s find those same things in the women that we love. That’s true #girlpower!

 

 

For My Daughter on International Women’s Day

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Today is International Women’s Day and I want to give you the rah rah women speech, but I’m going to give you a different one. I feel sorry for you. No. I’m not going to give the I walked to school uphill in snow both ways speech. I didn’t do that. Nor am I going to give you the street light was my curfew crap that you see all over social media from idiots with a revisionist history of a perfect world that never really existed. I feel sorry for you because despite today being International Women’s Day, we still have so far to go.

There are wars being fought every day. On social media. Women are killing one another. Stay at home moms fighting with working moms over who has it tougher, as if there could really ever be a clear winner there. Mothers taking their kids to the park face criticism if they answer their cell phone or, eek, scroll Facebook as their kids navigate the monkey bars. Those moms answering their phones are robbing their kids of something. What? I don’t know.

Then there’s the constant drama in the media. Do Madonna and Lady GaGa hate each other? Did Taylor Swift write a song about Katy Perry? Why is nobody wondering why Brad Pitt didn’t attend George Clooney’s wedding. God how we still hear about how Angelina and Jen barely missed one another at some event but we never hear about the man fights, and trust me, men fight too. Seriously, why wasn’t Brad at George’s wedding? Did they have a fight? Are they still besties?

So much is heard about teen cyber-bullying but there are a million websites, and even mainstream news, with stories showing “them” without makeup or “guess which celebrity this is” with close-ups of cellulite. Cindy Crawford is a gorgeous woman but also a brilliant businesswoman, wife and mom. Why was there such an uproar over pictures of her that didn’t show a perfect stomach when she is 49 and the mother of two kids? Where is the close-up of John Travolta’s stomach?

I  feel sorry for you because I believe it’s a tough time to be a woman, even with all of the advantages we’ve earned. And yes, we’ve earned them. That’s the part that kills me in all of this. Women banded together to fight for rights, for equality. I don’t know why we stood together only to tear one another apart when it comes to all the other stuff.

The world is your oyster. Despite all the crap, I do believe that. I believe you can do anything you want and be anything you want. If you get anything out of International Women’s Day, I’d hope it would be to be a kindler gentler woman.  Don’t engage in the tearing down of other women. Surround yourself with women who will build you up, woman that will support you. There are good women out there, a lot of good women. We can be friends. We can be the best friends.