WOMEN WHO SHOOT THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT

It's March and that means the most under-recognized special emphasis month around, Women's History Month.

As a woman who grew up watching June Cleaver clean stoves wearing a sweater and pearls, and recognizing how far from reality this was, I am increasingly dismayed by what I see today passing as 'liberation' or even 'equality.'

I see women smirking in a superior manner over their idiot husbands in a style made famous in the sitcom 'Bewitched'. Only through the superior skills and intellect of the wife could the husband cope or survive. So, the clueless man has become the stock character in commercials or television. She has migrated to the office, the job, and everywhere else. The cartoon image of the superior woman dealing with cartoonish men. They are so vile men must sequester themselves in 'Man Caves" to escape.

Bang! One bullet down.

I see women wriggle their behinds and roll their hips as they gaze seductively into a camera all while doing erratic pelvic thrusts spouting lyrics rated 'R.' They have ceased to fight being a sex symbol and have embraced their symbolism making it almost caricature. They wear their body scultping, implants, and injections like badges of honor defining their worth. They spout nonsense about doing what they want.....but they are simply doing what someone has deemed important to market to a demographic to further support the stereotype that keeps women as sex objects.

Bang! One bullet down.

I see women adopting stereotypes of people consumed by shopping, hair styles, high heels, and 'attitude'! They shop, they do not think. They talk, they do not think. They are content to merely be and not do. We do all we can to support the ethos that says pretty is better than smart, vapid is better than deep, and flighty is better than strong. We accept a role of butterfly even when we are meant to be eagles and why? Acceptance? Conformity? Expectations? To play to the twisted hyper-masculinity of some men that need empty headed, sex symbols, and not real human women?

Bang! One more bullet down.

"Women's History Month" - the leaders, the warriors, the thinkers, the healers, the women who lead by having the courage to be themselves and to be all they could be. They made the world a better place. They cast off the shackles of limitations, of stereotypes, and dared to be who they were and do what needed to be done. They did not demean themselves into caricatures of superior condescending creatures, sexy ' bitches', or shopping addicts with empty heads. When THEY said they were liberated it meant something else entirely. Self-worth, achievement, courage, and significant action.

Get some bandages; let's stop allowing women to shoot themselves in the foot anymore.

Marilyn A. Hudson