Why I Can't Label Myself a Feminist, But Rather An Equalist.

I was reading the Business Examiner today. Today was special because today there was a section from Women In Business magazine. It talked about how we, as women are so hard done by because men have held us back from positions of power. It explained to us that more men are the heads of Fortune 500 companies, with only a handful of women doing the same thing. It told us this is wrong and needs to be changed. Well that's fair. It's true. It is also true that women have been discriminated against in the past, and still are to some degree; the only difference now is that it isn't politically correct, so it's a little harder to get away with these days. But let's face it, everyone is discriminated against to some degree... this my friends, is life. It's wrong, but it remains a fact. You're either too black, too female, too pretty, not pretty enough, too gay, etc. etc...someone is going to dislike you for no good reason.

I have a different perspective on the reason that less woman are high up in business (by the by, the article did note that more women than men are self-employed).

First of all, women often times just aren't as interested in being moguls. Nor are they typically as aggressive as men. The woman who actually takes the initiative and goes after it is very often sitting up there at the top of the ladder, and doing a bang-up job. For instance, my aunt started at Wood Gundy in the 1970's, as a file clerk, and graduated Vice President in 2006. Why is it so fantastical because she's a woman? Can't it just be that she's a great business leader, who happens to be a woman? Why do we continually define ourselves and our success by our ever-important vagina? We are alienating ourselves with our 'hey, look what I can do' attitude. Is it any wonder that we continue not to be taken seriously? Rather than quietly continuing to rise to the top, we feel this intense need to point out the miracle of our success. In the big scheme of things, it's only been a very short period of time since women started to step out of the kitchen, take off the apron and enter the work-force on the same level as men, so it's going to take us a while to catch up. I suspect there are a lot of women who would like to dance back to the kitchen, don that apron and quit working outside the home entirely, but are terrified to admit that, for fear of feminist women beating her senseless for such heresy; I personally sustained ridicule at giving up my career to stay home with my boys. After all, my feminist friends pointed out, I'm a woman so I should have been doing it all!

Women In Business is a good magazine celebrating WOMEN IN BUSINESS. No men, just women. I like the Business Examiner because it's about PEOPLE in business, with much less emphasis on crotch style. Although I feel that it is necessary to point out exceptional people, I take offense at the constant 'Look What I Can Do' attitude, which is amazing because I'm a woman. If there was a MEN IN BUSINESS magazine, you better believe that women would lose their minds at being excluded... the double standard is mind-boggling! We as women, feel this intense need to be put on pedestals and be a part of every sincle aspect of men's worlds. They have held us down long enough and we are going to prove that we can do everything they can do, in the same place, at the same time, and better than men damnit!! Boy scouts isn't even for boys anymore. Girls have Girl Guides (NO BOYS ALLOWED), but by God you will not stop her from joining that all boy fraternity! That is sexism you bastards, and you can't do that to us!!! Nor are you allowed to have all boy gyms, or sports teams. I digress... that's for another day.

I am a woman who owns a business, which is growing steadily. I'm proud of myself and my accomplishments. Not because I'm a woman, but because the only thing I ever wanted was to work for myself and make lots of money. I do, and I am, and I'm thrilled! Many of my clients are men (about 60%). When these clients thank me for providing a valuable service and send me referrals because of that value, I feel proud of my accomplishments and relish the success. Not one time have I thought of it as some great feat because I'm a woman. Nor am I ever made to feel that way by those nasty men, who typically hold us down. These clients of mine, men and women alike, are simply pleased that I provide them help when they need it and therefore are happy to help me along in my success, for which I am infinitely grateful.

I believe we'd be taken much more seriously if we stopped forcing ourselves on the male population and just continued to be the best we can be. I believe if we just asked for and gave equality, we'd get much farther ahead much faster.

Infiltrating

My husband just walked out the door, on his way to the gym ~ or the Temple. To him, keeping in good shape is almost a religion. God bless him! So, I got to thinking about something he said to me yestderday when he was ralating a story about a girl in the gym running on the treadmill while he rode the x-trainer. It was a funny story, but I was distracted and I couldn't help myself asking 'but honey, I thought they did all those renovations to make a women's side and a guys' side', to which he replied, 'no, there is a WOMEN's side and a CO-ED side. Guys aren't allowed to have their own gym; that would be sexist!'

This got me thinking about how we women feel this intense need to be everywhere, doing everything that the guys are doing, while they're doing it and in the same place. God forbid a man decide he wants to work out on the girl's side of the gym, the police would be summond and the local papers would print a nice big fat juicy story about the pervert in our midst who wanted to sweat in the same room as the females! Personally, I would be much happier if these little tarts would stay on their side (ok, so I have insecurities!) The only reason they aren't is because they're aching to be noticed...this is confirmed by my hubby, in that he is often relating stories of these girls getting right in front of him while he's doing whatever it is he's doing, and they bend over, stretch etc. so that all behind them get a good look. Not that he's complaining lol. But even he says it's really a bit much sometimes, embarrasing even. He belongs to two gyms....one for weights and cardio, the other is his 'fight club'. This is where he goes to 'grapple'. He fought professionally in the early days of the UFC and continues to hone his skills twice a week, in order to stay in shape. The owner of both gyms are friends, and they say that they aren't 'allowed' to have a men's only side; however, it is mandatory that they have a 'women's only' area. How is this ok? The reason that it bothers hubby, and this I agree with 100%, is that he has absolutely nowhere he can go and just 'be a man' without having to worry about his language or behaviour; where he can just fight with other guys in a controlled environment and get out his aggressions of the day. His job is very stressful and he NEEDS this environment to help ease that stress. He doesn't go out 'with the boys' to the bar or anything like that. The gym is his guy time. Of course the girls, most of whom have absolutely no experience INSISTED that they be allowed in the men's advanced class. If not, they would cause problems! Hubby refuses to 'roll' with these girls ~ he laughingly says that if he's got a girl pinned, it isn't going to be to choke her out, but more importantly, he doesn't feel it's appropriate for a 6'2" 240lb. well muscled man to be rolling around with little girls. For this among many other reasons, I love him. He has principals. They call him 'old school'. Mostly he just rolls with it and doesn't care. He's well respected there and has many friends and even instructs when called on (he's a self-admitted attention whore, so ANY attention works for him!). His only complaint is that if someone gasp, uses profanity in this environment, or louder gasp passes gas....!....one of the women will complain that this is inappropriate behaviour due to the delicate ears and noses in the room (the fairer sex). Of course, his response is always that they are free to attend the women's only classes and get the fuck out of his space ~ luckily he's well respected after all!

I work out at a differnt gym or at home. I do this because hubby and I live together, work together and spend all our free time together. I decided that he should have something that's his...so I switched gyms. I have options. I can go anywhere I want. This is my right as a woman. I just wonder why we don't give everyone the same rights. Isn't equality supposed to go both ways? I use the gym as an example because it's something that actually means something to me. I would like hubby to have a place to go where half naked women aren't showing their parts off through their skimpy workout gear. Not that I worry.....much lol.

About a year ago, a man in the States decided that equality should mean equality, so he lobbied for a membership at Curves. Holy shit, the uproar. I never did find out what happened to him, but I bet he's not a member!

Our infiltration is much farther reaching of course. There is absolutely nowhere that men or boys are allowed to be completely alone. I read a news story once that blew me away....now that women are sportscasters (because we can do anything you can do better), they whined about not being allowed into the men's locker room to interview after games, because that's discrimitation. THEN this woman sportscaster lodged a complaint when she was granted access into the MENS shower and the men were all naked! We won't even allow them a fucking locker room!

I'm so embarrased......

Ok, here I go....

I have been wanting a place to vent my frustrations with society and thought this seemed like a good place to start.

I was searching the internet for catchy pictures and things, you know, cartoons and the like to spiffy up my first post in the hope that my words would sparkle a bit more. In my search, I am reminded of why I often feel ashamed to be a woman. Am I the only woman who is embarrassed by WOMEN’S constant desire to somehow bring men down a peg to show how much better we are than they? Am I the only one who realizes we doth protest too much?! There is a barrage of cartoons and funny anecdotes showing me that I, as a WOMAN am so much smarter, more capable and generally an all-round better human because of my crotch style. Oh but hang on, there is a caveat ~ PMS and menopause. While suffering these two afflictions, I am to understand that I may behave in any manner at all, be that angry, bitchy, emotional, insane, erratic; IT IS MY RIGHT AS A WOMAN.

This is the message us women are sending:
Men are stupidy-heads! They’re clumsy, oafish, dirty, insensitive great big MEANIES!

I shall digress for a second here. I am very happy being a woman, please don’t get the wrong idea. I wouldn’t be anyone other than the woman I am. I am a professional, grounded, happy woman, who suffers occasional panic attacks. I am also the mother of 3; 2 teens and a t’ween, all boys. I am also a rare breed, who is in as happy and healthy a relationship as I ever could have dreamed, with my very best friend. We have our ups and downs, or we wouldn’t be normal, but it’s good. I am going to point out now that I did not begin this paragraph with ‘I’m a mother of 3 boys’. Something us women tend to do is define ourselves by the fact that we have birthed children. We are MOTHERS. Watch out. Don’t fuck with me, because I am a WOMAN who is a MOTHER. Psst!.... So are literally billions of other women! Gasp, sputter, say it isn’t so! I’m not extra special because I am a mother? A mother is not WHO I AM??? Nope! I, like all women, was engineered to be able to carry zygotes to embryo to baby. That was genetic design. Without the sperm of a male, it wouldn’t have happened. We have our roles. We are different by nature. Praise the Gods, God, Allah, Goddess, Mother Nature or the higher power of your choice and halleluiah!!!

I do love being a mother to these budding stupidy-head men, and I am doing my best to help them along in this society that conspires and desires desperately to emasculate them.

Women, we are doing ourselves a disservice. In our attempts to prove to men that we are better than they, we are looking pathetic, weak and sad. We are standing up and saying we are better than men because we ‘can bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan’… then we are taking them to court for ‘alimony’ and taking half of everything in the divorce, because we ‘deserve it’, whether we helped to build it or it was theirs before we got there. And by the way, after we take half, we want a monthly amount to keep us in the ‘lifestyle we have become accustomed to’. I am talking now about alimony and not child support, which is a completely separate issue. Something is not right about this. This is not independence. This is ‘having our cake and eating it too’ (although I personally never understood why anyone should have cake they couldn’t eat, it seemed the appropriate phrase).

I am done my ranting for this day. I am sure if my un-womanly writings are ever read by other women, I will be ejected from the ‘club’, but I don’t care, I’ll start my own ~ I am WOMAN after all, I can do anything! I believe I am equal to ~ in a different way ~ not better than and I stand by that. I am not a ‘liberated’ woman, I am simply a woman who believes that neither sex is better than. My guilty pleasure is chivalry….