Woman power – or not?

In the past few weeks, I’ve done deep and meaningful posts. This week’s post, I’m going to have a bit of fun with. Let me know if you think how I’ve done – not if I haven’t quite made the mark.

When I see the words “woman power” or “women power”, I think of someone that can do multiple things and kick some butt all within a short span of time. This description is backed up by a few websites that define them as “…females who manage to wield power in societies that try to limit it or decree female submission; where their leadership is stigmatized and their creativity disdained. [It can also mean] women who resist and overthrow oppressive traditions and regimes. Who break The Rules in defiance of unjust legal and religious "authorities." Who pursue their vision in spite of the personal cost” and another website states “It could mean “I am woman, hear me roar.” It could mean “Women unite!” It could mean a lot of things to different people. However one thing I know for sure, there seems to be an uplifting energy and excitement when you say the phrase WOMAN POWER to another woman”. What I believe is that it comprises both of these meanings – you think of these terms and it fills you with energy and excitement and that spurs you on to do the wielding of power and resisting of overthrowing of oppression.

When I was growing up, there weren’t many areas where women could actually think they could have or get woman power. Then during the late 70’s things started to change – all of a sudden Wonder Woman, Cat Woman, Bionic Woman were all making appearances on TV. Then the “normal” TV shows were starting to focus that way – an example was Happy Days where Marion told people to “go sit on it” which was funny because before that she would have been told to listen to her husband and go to the kitchen or something. From there women in main rolls and kicking butt took off – You had Charlie’s Angels, Designing Women, and Murphy Brown.

Women in Key Roles

In the past few years, women have started to take the front line on many fronts - in business (CEO and chair of PepsiCo Indra Nooyi), in law (Supreme court judge  Sonia Sotomayor), in Science and Medicine (Jane Goodall conducted ground breaking work on chimpanzees), Television (host and actress Oprah Winfrey), and the list goes on and on. We are no longer the sex that has to wait – we can get out there in the world and stand up and make a difference. The hard part is to see where we can make the difference and getting the courage to make that difference.

Is violence the answer?

Honestly, I have my spurts of wanting to kick some butt, but I do that in different ways. Can I kick some butt? Sure I can – I’ve had self-defense training, but that’s to protect myself and those I care about. What I have learned over my years getting violent about it is not the way to go. There are other ways to go about getting things done. And in doing this, I must see that the worth is there and make sure what I do is ethical and fits closely with what truly believe, because if it doesn’t, it’s not worth doing.  When it’s worth doing, I put my all into capturing as much information about it as I can and finding avenues where it can be expanded upon in order to get the results that are expected. True, those results may change, but the end result is what matters and gets you to the desired finish line.

If I don’t truly believe what is important within my heart, then either you must leave it alone and stop it, or redirect it to what IS important within my heart. By my experience, if you do this, you will have the passion and the energy to put your Woman Power out there and kick some butt. 

 

This video of episodes of Charmed was taken from YouTube - but see how kicking butt is sometimes worth it?

Some people think it’s just a business or educated area for these feelings. That’s not correct at all. If anything, that is selling you, as a person, short. If you notice, I said “selling you as a person” which means everyone – not just women. We’d like to think, that but it’s all of us man, woman, and children. What’s to say that a person who’s a stay at home parent cannot be passionate about the children, something that concerns the household, or something that’s going on in the neighbourhood? It’s all in the perspective and what makes you act within yourself to be as powerful as the Wonder Woman, Cat Woman, Bionic Women, Alias, and Annie in Covert Affairs we have grown up with and continue to watch.

2010 Winners and Finalists of Eastern Metro Region of Adult,Community and Further Education Regional Awards

For me, it used to be working to get the best results for learners or students and those who support those students to get any kind of education to make them feel that passion or power that they have inside of them. That’s what kept me going because I could see by meeting some learners, just how important those feelings of power were for those learners. Those feelings were just as powerful for those teachers, tutors and practitioners who could see the outcomes in the learner’s eyes.  However, powers that be decided that’s not the case and decided to take my job away from me. It took me a bit, but I sat down, did some searching and have redirected those feelings into teaching those learners, writing up blog posts, taking classes and restarting the family history searching again. Do I wish I was back doing what I was doing for those learners? Sure I do, but now I can see I can do just as much good teaching, getting taught and writing about all things. Doing all of those things gives me those woman power feelings. 

This is me for Halloween one year - Woman Power Super Hero!

So let’s go out there and kick some butt!

How others see you and how you see yourself

This is a subject that gets brought up in the media every year – are we putting too much emphasis on how we look or not enough? What are these ideals doing to our children? There are other questions that get brought up but these 2 questions are the main questions that get brought up each and every year. When they do appear on the news and other programs, I believe it gets brought up because it MUST be a slow news day.

Yes, some people have more self-esteem problems than others do. We all like or dislike something about our bodies. However, people intend to forget our bodies are a living human being and they can be change or molded into whatever we want them to be. It can be hard or easy depending on what we want to have changed on our bodies, but it can be done. 

Are we putting too much emphasis on how we look?

  

When I was growing up, this is what everyone talked about - was someone too thin, too fat, too tall, too short – and that’s how we were judged. As someone that went into the too fat column, at first it saddened me that this was the only thing people could see of me. As time went on, I got angry and upset because there was and is more to me than this. Finally, I had acceptance of myself. Screw what everyone else thought, this is my body and if they didn’t like it then there’s the door and don’t let it hit you on the way out. Just to let you know, that is the PG rating of what I’ve told some of my doctors.  

I think I must have heard all of the types of ideas for weight loss over my years – don’t eat so much, what ARE you eating, you have to eat only salads, to you need to have your stomach stapled so you can lose weight and don’t come back in here until you do.  If this wasn’t enough, I have been on many diets over the years – Slim fast (until I started getting sick each time I had to eat), only vegetables (until I was so hungry that my stomach kept grumbling and I wasn’t losing any weight), to salads with chicken breasts only (again I was so hungry that I couldn’t stop eating and again I wasn’t losing any weight), and then someone suggested a dietitian because I told them where they could stick the dieting. The doctor that suggested that was stunned when I told her where should could stick the idea of another diet as each time I tried to lose the weight, I always stacked on more. This doctor told me to please go and see the dietitian because she knows what I’m going through with losing weight.  I finally relented and went to see her. I made it clear to her that I wasn’t going to bed hungry, but I would listen to her and see what we could come up with. Over the next 2 months, I saw her a few times and I started to lose weight AND stayed hungry. I now know it is possible to do this. 

I’m not saying that everyone is willing to do this. I know of people that have done the drastic weight loss ideas such as stomach stapling, gastric sleeve, bypass and lap band surgery. Each person has had different results from the great to the not so great. Does it work you might be asking and I can tell you again it depends on how much one person is willing to do or not. This willingness is where the weight is either gained, maintained or lost. 

The bigger question, and one of the questions of this blog, is but why do we do this to ourselves? Is it because of our perceptions of how we look or is it how people think we look? 

How others perceive on how we look

I honestly think we do these types of weight loss that I’ve described above, generally, because of either how we were told we look growing up or how people have stated to us since we were teenagers. I think depending upon the type of person you are, is how you’ve acted upon it. 

This video above, is what I felt like during my weight struggles – I didn’t want my picture taken.

There were many times growing up, I was called lazy, fat, and, yes, a cow. I’ve even had the nickname Moo Cow. This was all due to my weight issues. It pushed me to going on diet after diet and my self-esteem went down because of what others were telling me. By the time I graduated from high school, I was in the angry stage and told others where they could shove their opinions. Within 5 or so years of graduating, I was going between the angry stage and the who cares stage. By the time I got married, I was at the who cares stage and this is me and if you don’t like it tough – there’s the door.  

The who cares stage is me becoming comfortable with what I am and what I look like. This is what I’ve had handed to me, and it’s a continuous work in progress but it’s my work in progress.

Since then there have been times when I’ve gone back and forth between these stages, and usually it’s around fertility and the doctors there trying to get me to lose the weight.  That being said, I have also mellowed in my growing older. I can concede that I need to lose weight because of diseases like diabetes but doctors have to understand my medical history and that it’s not easy as that. They can understand and usually we come to an agreement. 

How I perceive how I look

Once I reached this stage, life was happier and lighter. I felt I could once again enjoy myself and life. It wasn’t until I talked to the dietitian and thought about the subjects and topics we discussed that I came to these conclusions.

We all have to come to the conclusions to what we will accept and what we won’t in life. Our bodies are like that. If we don’t like what we see, then we should go to change it and get on with and enjoy life.

If you take a look at this year’s Dove commercial where people were asked to describe themselves as to what they see and you can see the amazing differences between the two perceptions. 

Cost is usually a really big factor when people decide to change their bodies. It doesn’t have to be. You need to tone up your arms? Then use a canned good as a weight. You need to tone up your legs? Then you can use books to simulate stairs or walk in place for a set time. You don’t like either of these options? Then how about put on your favourite songs and dance around the house? Or dance while doing house cleaning? These will all burn calories and tone you up and will cost you basically nothing. These are all nice to do, but realize that if you ARE doing them, the reason why – because you love yourself and want to change something about you.

Some of us come to these revelations earlier in life than others. In 2012, Dustin Hoffman actually brought this topic up in an interview where he realized that if someone wasn’t attractive, he would never think of talking to them – he wouldn’t talk to them just because he didn’t find them attractive. You could tell, he was very ashamed of this, but I hate to tell him this but he’s not the only one who does this. It’s in everyone’s everyday life – from employers, to acquaintances, to customers.  I still get this in today’s world. 

My husband and I April 2013

Two personal examples are of my husband and I which are both youthful looking. You cannot believe, unless you’ve had it done to you, what it feels like to go in to purchase a mattress set and was told that once you can afford it to come back because they know it would take you awhile to save for it (we were in our late 30’s) or not to be even talked by a house building representative until you approached them, and were told that this was too expensive for us and to come back once we had a job for an amount of time and had savings (we were in our late 20’s and had been married for a few years).

As uncomfortable as this makes some of us, it is a fact of life that some people are this narrow minded. Some of them will change upon growing older and some people won’t. It’s all in how people act and how we intend to act when this is thrust upon us. In the incident with the house building representative did that to us, my temper gauge went zero to 60 in about .05 of a second. However, I just stated that he better get his head out of his butt because to say that to people almost 30 years old with stable employment would cost him income and its age discrimination and walked out. I could have screamed, rant and raved which would have gotten the angry factor out of me, but I then wouldn’t have had the pleasure to see the colour drain from the guy’s face after I told him about us and walked out.  

Looking at the topic, it’s a bit of how others see us but it’s also how we see and act ourselves. You must be comfortable in your own body and life and that will come out in how you look. Depending on someone’s worthiness either as an acquaintance, employer or friend, will depend upon if they really see the real you or just the outside. As many of my real friends know, a real friend will accept you both inside and out no matter what life throws at either of you.

My friends and I in 2012. Most of them I had been friends with for over 30 years!

Independence – What would you do if you didn’t have it?

As its July 4^th, Independence Day, this week in the United States, I sit back and think of how many people don’t even think about having independence. People today just think it’s a given that it’s there and don’t think – what would their life be like if they didn’t have it? 

Governments - Independence versus Communist Rule

As the United States has celebrates its 237^th birthday, did you know that this special day wasn’t a federal holiday until 1870? Yes, that’s correct! Congress didn’t make it a holiday until 1870, but wasn’t a paid holiday until 1941. Unbelievable but true. Then there are some other people that say that America wasn’t anactually independent until August 2, 1776. Why is this? This is because the Declaration of Independence wasn’t fully signed until August 2^nd.  Then why does America celebrate it on that day? It’s because Congress, in a closed session, actually passed the wording of the document, The Declaration of Independence, on that day and only 3 people (Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin), to my knowledge, signed it.

On the other hand, those who live in Communist Rule countries know little about the Independence that the US forefathers wrote about.  Some people, who live there, don’t think about what they could be gaining (freedom of speech to name just one freedom) by not living in their country, and that’s because they are used to living this way and that’s fine by them. Much of what they say and do in these regions of the world is controlled by the government. Some people can and do like living this way and others who are tired of living this way move to countries which they do have their independence.

History IS important

In fact, back in the late 1800’s many people immigrated from one of these countries to places like the US. My ancestors were many of them that took this time to leave the countries of their birth and moved to a country, as young as it was, showed what they considered safer, secure and more of a promise than the one they knew. One of the common says “Stay with the evil you know or the devil you don’t know” comes to mind. For some, this was a huge change for them as they left everything they knew and loved behind – including loved ones.

 

I know from speaking to my grandmother, who immigrated to the US when she was a young girl, that she didn’t know what to expect but knew it had to be better than what they were living in. Then she saw the Statue of Liberty and said that it was huge and beautiful she knew that she was finally safe. I didn’t entirely understand what she was saying, until this year when I started to research the conditions when she left Poland with her mother and meet up with her father after they cleared Ellis Island. Recently, I spoke to my father about them coming to the US, and it opened my eyes to exactly what the family went through before they arrived at Ellis Island and my respect went up another notch.  If only I could have been a bit older to completely understand when my grandmother was alive, I could have sat there talking to her for days.

As for which government is better, is a bit of a mix feeling and thoughts when I sat thinking about it. In a way both are pretty good with the government being a large mother and father to the people rather than the mother and fathers of the independent state being the ones to regulate what happens. That being said, I don’t feel I could probably live with a government dictating to me what I could and could not do.

That being said, with the recent privacy issues being released by Edward Snowden, regarding the government’s surveillance, people are concerned about this issue. I’ve heard and read about people saying it goes against laws and liberties and what makes the US the US. This I can understand, however, this has happened before – remember back in World War 2? – and it goes along those lines, I believe, the government is taking this stand.

In the past nearly 10 years, we have had 3 major buildings terrorized, countless near attacks and recently the Boston Marathon bombing. If you think back to what you felt each time these things

2013 Boston Bombing

happened, is the reasoning behind why the government is trying to do the surveillance that they are. Do I like it? No, however, I understand that when I was calling into the US from Australia, I knew there were people listening in as you can hear the clicks and hesitations that tell me someone else is on the line but I know if that’s what they have to do to keep my friends and family safe, then that’s what they do. My life is not that exciting for them to listen into, but if they want to be extremely bored by my life then leave them to it. Because compared to what my grandmother and great grandparents went through, a few listening in clicks are a lot better than having someone I love killed by someone that they could have stopped.

My grandmother, Jean, in the 1980's.

So this week when you think of the US and their free liberties, also think of those who don’t have those liberties. Some of them want those liberties but don’t have the means or will power to get them unlike my ancestors. Each year when this holiday comes around, I think of what my grandmother’s face would have looked like as she sailed past the Statue of Liberty and how she felt so safe and NEVER give that up – NEVER give up my US citizenship. I did make that promise and I WILL keep it because it means even more now, today, then it did when she asked me to give that promise. 

secure that she asked me, her granddaughter, before her death to promise and swear that whatever I did in life, to

So what will you think about on this day of Independence?