Tagged: hillary clinton
More Than Enough
For a long time now I’ve been pondering why so many women have low self-esteem and why even those who seem confident and strong still often feel they’re just not enough. Society as a whole still seems to regard our gender as slightly less valuable than men – look at our pay ratio’s, and the corporate ceilings we’ve yet to break, popularity of movie stars and their box office worth, and even at the idea of having a woman lead our country.
I believe the primary reason women judge each other with such envy and jealousy stems from the feeling (or worse, their belief), that they’re not enough – not pretty enough, thin enough, young enough, smart enough. It doesn’t help that if you’re not young and/or pretty, society still values you less than even an old, ugly, racist man
I am desperate to see this change, both for my peers, and my daughter’s generation. We are enough and we need to stop the division. There are valid and specific differences between men and women, but there is no difference in our capabilities as a species to succeed and deserve equal respect. However, until we stop competing on such trivial levels (like weight and breast size) the rest of society will not see us as equal (and enough) – primarily because we’re not demanding it.
Having a father who abandoned me at age 6, I had long struggled with feelings of not being enough, especially where men were concerned. It’s no wonder … when a parent seemingly rejects a child, the child will always assume that gender doesn’t value them. So in my 20’s and 30’s I made it my mission to be physically strong, emotionally stoic, sexy in that tough, tom-boy with a knife kind of way, and very accomplished in all things “dude.” I rebuilt my car engine, I helped a boyfriend build a house from the ground up, and I was always the best wing-man for my male friends when out at bars.
Now I look back at that time and laugh – I was trying so hard to be strong and independent so that men would love to have me around, not realizing how intimidating that was to most men. They liked having me as a friend, but not dating me. Once again I was still not “enough.”
Now that I’m in my 50’s I have found comfort in knowing that I am most certainly enough, but more importantly, that it doesn’t matter to me if anyone else thinks so. Besides, my loving husband, family, and plethora of close quality friends all think I’m awesome and better than enough, and who else matters?
So how do I impart this wisdom that took me decades to learn to those women and young girls who still suffer from daily bouts of doubt and fear that they are not as special and beautiful as that Barbie at the gym? I guess the first step is today’s post, and the subsequent steps are to keep shouting from my soapbox (aka social media) that WE ARE ENOUGH!
Stop comparing yourself to anyone else. Love yourself, love your body, do what you can to be healthy inside and out, and remember that there is no one else like you who has lived the life you’ve had, and that makes you unique, special and more than ENOUGH.
The Things We Say
With society being so focused on enforcing “politically correct” language these days, I’m constantly surprised at how many standard statements are not deemed rude or demeaning. For instance, I saw a woman at my daughter’s school yesterday carrying a 4-week old baby. The woman was slender and in workout clothes. She was surrounded by other women all saying how incredible she looks after only 4 weeks! (Believe me when I say not all of them had sincere tones to their “compliments.”)
The issue I have with this example is that it is implying that women after childbirth (and pregnant women as well) do not look good. Stretched out bodies or extra fat is viewed as “unattractive” and although the majority of women take 6 months or longer to get their bodies back to pre-birth shape (if at all), the idea that a woman who doesn’t look like she just had a baby after only 4 weeks is incredible (i.e., special and/or coveted) bothers me.
Where does that leave the rest of the women, and how they feel about their bodies? This rides tandem to my pet peeve of people asking naturally thin women if they ever eat. You would never walk up to an over-fat woman and ask her if she ever eats less or diets, but you can walk up to a skinny woman and tell her she needs to eat more! We’re constantly judging each other’s bodies.
I’m also surprised by how many women will comment about a woman who clearly has spent a lot of money on her clothes, hair and purse (i.e., appears to have large amounts of discretionary money) as if it’s a put down. Yet we don’t know her story, and the irony is that America loves the idea of working just enough to make lots of money and then spending it as a blatant indication that you HAVE it. But these same women get their panties in a bunch if a clutch of “wealthy” woman looked down on a woman wearing sweat pants and carrying a purse from Target.
The bottom line is that there’s just too much judgment and negativity going around where women are concerned — towards women and BY women. Despite the fact that we almost had a woman as President of this great Nation, women still only hold 4.6% of CEO Positions in S&P Fortune 500 companies (23 out of 500 to be exact). We (women) are still holding each other back with our pettiness and constant need to compare, judge, and find ways to feel superior (or make others feel inferior).
So take a hard look at how, where and why you judge other women and decide for yourself if you can improve your perceptions, and think about what the affects of what you say. Just like last month’s historical election, it takes all of us, one-at-a-time, to make a change!
Is It Wrong To Be Right?
My patience as a parent is continually tested by my 10-year old’s need to be right. I engage far too often in a test of wills as we battle for who is right. I know in the back of my mind that right isn’t necessarily what’s important. Being honest, being compassionate, being reliable – those are traits to strive for. Being right, well that’s really about the ego.
Obviously we all love being right when it comes to matters of fact or real life importance, but most of us lock horns when we are obsessed with being right on matters of the heart – things we feel passionately about. But our egos truly get in the way when they push us to stop listening or seek a compromise because only being right will do. This is most evident with the current HUGE ego standoff between republicans and democrats.
Trump is nothing but an egomaniac who is driven 24/7 with being right even when he is clearly wrong (even when just the day before he said he was right with a completely opposite stance). Many people believe to their bones that they are right about Hillary, that she’s a duplicitous power hungry bitch who cannot be trusted when she smiles and says she’s right. Because of our need to be right, we have all been subjected to over 12 months of rhetoric and mud slinging just to be on the side that gets to say they’re right (the winners).
What’s wrong with all this is that 99% of the time being right doesn’t make a bit of difference. Clearly the majority of American’s thought they were right to elect Obama. The Republican controlled House and Senate however, thought they were right to deem every one of his acts or proposals as wrong. The end result is that almost nothing has improved in the last four years, and whether Trump or Clinton wins, the next four years are likely to be just as stagnant as the last. Sadly, being the right person for the Presidency this year won’t change what’s wrong.
Forget about politics, how about the entertainment industry? Kanye West is so certain that everything he does is right, he had no compunction interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech a few years back to inform the whole world that Beyonce was the right winner. His wife Kim Kardashian believes she was wrongfully attacked because she posted a nude photo of herself as a “mother with nothing to wear.” Who’s right, the outraged women of the world, or the self-obsessed media whore who was exercising her right to free speech?
What I’m trying to teach my child is the difference between “beneficial rightness” and “detrimental rightness.” When we correct a friend, spouse or parent as they’re telling a story and their facts are little out of order, does interrupting and/or correcting them serve any purpose? Does it make the story better? Does it make them feel better or you?
Conversely, when you correct someone (like your kids) on something like the spelling of a word, or a math equation, that benefits them. When you correct their behavior or their nutrition, that benefits them. When a candidate denies lying about their past, if there are validated facts that prove them wrong, we as a people should learn what’s right (i.e., true) — that benefits us.
So who IS right, or when is it right to be right? Who cares! Ultimately being right doesn’t get the job done – real listening and compromise is what’s needed in this world.
A Kick In The Butt 