Breaking the Mold

So, I was doing a little research to develop some fresh, new inspiring writing the other day. I simply searched women’s empowerment. On the upswing, I found oodles of websites devoted to empowering women around the world, and I’m not just talking about finding equal footing in a relationship, I’m talking equal opportunity to surviveto be considered an actual human beingin third world countries.

But what really got me was this: Down at the bottom of the screenyou know, where the advertised links arewere links entitled Dirty Girls in YOUR Area, Bad Girls in YOUR Area, and People Doing Dumb Things. Why? Can someone illustrate the connection for me?

If there’s one thing that pisses me off, it’s the constant and many times subversive, dehumanization of women and the women who let it happen. WAKE UP, WOMEN! I, for one, am so tired of not being able to watch a movie without being subject to a scene in a gentlemen’s (?!) club. Or worse yet, one where the woman is helpless and would give up her entire way of being just to be with her man (have you watched The Little Mermaid lately?) I struggle with who is being more stupidthe man for paying hard-earned money to gaze from a distance at a naked woman he can’t even touch or the woman making hundreds of dollars a night for taking it off and shakin’ it around in a darkened room of anonymous men. Is she just financially savvy or does she just really undervalue herself and her body? Part of me wants to say You Go Girl! and the other says Aw, honey, what ARE you doing to yourself? Don’t you know you are worth so much more?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not a right-wing conservative. Quite the opposite. I am very sexually open and uninhibited. I like to please my mate, when I have one. I believe in self-expression and in-your-face-individuality and I’ve been known to draw the eye downward a time or two. But

If films and songs and advertisements and books don’t start conveying real women (you know, the ones who EAT?) as the strong, independent, self-assured, confident, non-pole-dancing and sexy-without-being-s*s women most of us are, what does the future hold for our daughters? Just that previous sentence pisses me off, because when, exactly, does a woman become a s*t? What’s the magic number of men you have to sleep with? And why isn’t there a masculine name for it?

I would have thought we would have come much farther by now, but it only seems to get worse. I have two sons and one is in middle school. When I drop him off in the morning, I am utterly amazed at the blatant attire worn by 12-year-old girls that can only be described as Hooker, much like there are the Classic, the Romantic, and the Bohemian styles. At the same time, why should women not dress any stinkin’ way they want without being labeled? These types of quandaries are what frightened me and made me feel relieved that I didn’t have a daughter. The rushing river of mixed messages is so swift, I wasn’t sure I was strong enough in myself to teach her to be strong and swim against the current. Now maybebut not then.

Honestly, it took me years to finally step out of the mold created for me. The mold that included looped messages that played in my brain telling me that I was body for visual and sexual pleasure first and a valuable, intelligent human being second. Sometimes, I sheepishly admit, I still subscribe to that belief. Old, ingrained messages refreshed every time I open a magazine or watch a movie are hard to erase completely. At 45 and single, I watch my youth fade and my shape change and I sometimes wonder who will want me now? Then I remember: Oh yeah, I’m not that young woman anymore. And my motto comes to mind: This is the real me. You don’t like it, leave it. And it doesn’t bother me at all if they leave it. Good riddance, because I’m not giving up the hard-earned me for anyone. Nowadays, what I do and wear, I do and wear from my authentic self. I am the farthest thing from a helpless waif and I am a self-sustaining, strong and sexy woman.

I just wish I could have a daughter now.