LADY POWER...no, not lady powder...like grandma put on her pits..lady power!!!

Lady Power.

When I was little I was cool. I'm talking 7 year old cool. I played basketball with the boys before school and that gave me an elite status normally reserved for school captains. You either had to be pretty or be able to play with the boys and I, kazam, had instant cool. I’ve come to the conclusion that things haven’t changed much. We, yes, you and I, define women by how pretty they are or whether they can play with the boys.

In times gone by (don’t get me to be more specific than that) a woman was defined by her husband. She was a mother, a carer. Thanks to corsetry she could not breath...and swimming was probably out of the question. Thanks to propriety she could not laugh with a delicious snort. Her body was not her own. Thank goodness times have changed. Thank goodness we can now appreciate women as people. As powerful, enlightened beings.

Thank goodness we have so many female role models of advanced age where we don’t judge them by their appearance, but on their merit and contributions. C’mon! EVERYONE thinks Julia Gillard’s suit jacket choices make her look boxy and Hillary Clinton should just get a facelift already! Thank goodness women are not bowing to the pressure to change their natural shape at the expense of their health…..cough…Botox…tummy tuck....cough cough. Thank god a woman’s body is now hers to do with what she chooses… la did ah…not that we still operate under a 111 year old archaic law where woman attempting an abortion is committing a criminal offence ‘against morality”. Not that we young folk had a freak out about women’s lib and screamed: “No, no we want babies too…. If I say I’m not a feminist and wear enough mascara will you still like me? Lets have sex… whatever way you like. Wanna watch that porno where she dresses up like a Seabass?”

Am I oversimplifying things? Yes, but listen anyway, I stay interesting.

Often I ask myself why women who are strong and authoritative in their older years are seen as battleaxes and those in younger years seen as witches. I think it’s because women have such capacity for empathy and nurturing that when they decide to use their advanced model communication skills for rapprochement rather than mummy cuddles then it’s like a kazinga right in the Julia Gillards. It’s sweaty palms, sick to stomach and awkward, awkward, awkward. A man can swear, rant like a ranter and be physically intimidating, but when Mrs. Walker told me I looked like a boy when I got my hair cut short at age 11, it stang…. Or is it stung…. It stanged. My short boycut bob nearly fell out from the stress.

I think both the sexes arrive at different points in their lives when they ask themselves the question- who am I outside of a husband, a brother, a mother, a daughter. Women, however, have a tendency to put themselves second to all others (which often results in being second to a long line of things…which actually means your 380^th in the order of needs) and as a result I think are inclined to end up feeling a bit what for. In the long run you have cheated yourself and your partner. Once your magic armour of motherhood, girlfriendhood, wivelyhood is stripped away you may then be left asking the question... who the f&*#% was I before all of this? So may I encourage you to occassinally put yourself first for a change, yes, giving is fulfilling, but first you must find out who you are… for you…and no body else. And lets see more ladies of advanced years who are powerful in the media please. But not for their power/man/lady suits and for making to Forbes top 100 list, but are celebrated for being amazing at what they do, whatever that may be.

*N.B I don’t know what a Seabass is.