“Well-behaved women seldom make history.” *
A few ideas on women behaving badly:
- Use your outside voice inside
- Take the last serving
- BE the unexpected
- Say what you are really thinking
- Let yourself be a bad mother for a day, or an hour, or a minute
- Rock the boat!
- Be shrill, be downright hysterical
- Take the credit, take ALL of the credit, for a job well done
- Think about yourself for a change
So GO AHEAD, make a little history today and tell us about it below.
Missy Park, Founder
*Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Sorry, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony weren’t rude or self-centered. They were just done with lesser treatment for women and decided to use their outside voices loudly say what they were thinking. Thank god they did.
I think the point of the post is a little different than you understand. Sometimes women go to “get-along-ville”, that place where it’s not okay to make waves. I find myself going there way too often and Missy is right, sometimes you have to make a little history – even if it’s just bunking the system.
I have decided I WILL take the credit, ALL the credit, for a job well done. I work really hard and often make up for other people’s laziness and then “we” get the credit. Well, I’m done with that.
There is a balance, that you have to self-monitor between selfish and self-care and I NEVER advocate for being a bitch. You can be serious, strong, committed, and aggressive – but you should always strive to do it with grace. Especially when being a doormat and hiding how you feel or think certainly leads to a cruddy quality of life. And I am important in the lives of many children – I need to be a role model for my daughters and my son so the hard fought and hard won successes of women in the past don’t fade from memory. Or from reality.
I think the reason the women who act as you suggest in your column “make history” is because they are incredibly rude and self-centered. I hope I will be remembered for the opposite charactistics. I hope I make a difference in the life of a child who is in emergency foster care; in the past two weeks I have made two twin-bed size quilts to donate to Rainbow House, our local emergency foster care facility.
If you want to play serious golf, golf with the men.
Years ago, when I was a young girl, I recall watching a Television ad that warned women: “Never Let Them See You Sweat!”. A skinny gal in a sleeveless black dress was in a room of party goers; the epitome of how big a risk you could be taking if you were caught with your pits wet!
After being an athlete through my teen years and disciplining my body to perform when I needed, I didn’t have a complex about sweating in front of a stadium of people! Confidence and social location for such bodily functions made it that much easier.
Until I was diagjnosed with an auto-immune disease did it make it hard to avoid letting others see me sweat like I was in the middle of the Serengetti Desert a bit of a challenge. The line ‘NEVER LET THEM SEE YOU SWEAT’ would ring in my ears.
Over the last 15 years I have trail blazed three different medications for Crohns Disease and their horrific side effects that the Dr’s call a “two-edged sword”.
I take my job as a “Professional Patient” seriously. I am a consistent volunteer in my community as a coach and teacher along with being my son’s mom.
Being human and letting others see you “sweat” takes gutts and liberates others to do the same around you.
I didn’t have a problem sweating it out on the basketball or volleyball courts, running around a track in the sweltering heat, let alone breaking a sweat to a summer league of softball,
However, showing up to work for a Brokerage firm and sweating meno-pausal bullets in my 20’s, went right against that Deodorant sticks firm cautionary sales tactic!
My Motto is: “Let ’em see ya sweat!” Let the world know that it is okay to be a human being fighting not for a title but for your life!
Granted it can get to the point where it can be uncomfortable if your clothese don’t wick away the demonic dew drops of sheer agony being pressed out of your pours, and that is where you , Title 9, have saved my bacon.
Breezy shirts and shorts are comfortable and stylish enough to go out to eat dinner, to pull over my head for a quick trip to the ER for IV fluids when I am dehydrated, or simply to cozy up on the couch to read a book with my son.
Thanks, t-9, for putting it all in perspective and affordable. If you are looking for a a model for your next catalogue, count me in!!!!!!!!
I just started a new job…I’m exhausted and my husband planned a night out on our neighbors boat. I went willingly, but it was Friday, I was emotionally drained from the whole new job thing AND trying to figure out what to do with our two kids while out on the boat! We rafted up with other friends boats and had a little “happy 3 hours”. Except, I decided that by 8pm I was tired and I just fell asleep right in the middle of the party! At one point, I put my head down on my friends lap to get more comfy! Friends were socializing all around me and I didn’t care. I was exhausted!!! I slept for a good chunk of time and really only forced myself to stay awake enough to say “thank you” when it ended at 11pm.
I told my kids that since I go to their t-ball games, and skating lessons, and conferences, and every other thing, they can come to my boxing gym, where I am the lone female member. So they went. My son thinks he has found boy heaven. My daughter thinks it’s all filth and squalor. I think it is my turn.
P.S. It could get cold at the gym this winter. The Jane Dean Jacket would look good on me there. Very, very good. Stunning in fact.
I don’t know how we women get brain washed into thinking “Everyone Else Before Me”!
I get comments all the time about how fit I am. My response is usually: “I am the only one who can keep myself healthy, and I make it a priority!”
I have strength and power and I exercise that! I choose what goes into my mouth, I choose how I am going to look, I choose how I am going to feel! This is not being self-centered. This is just recoginizing what I need for myself first before I can give to others.
Take care of yourself–you only have one life to live!
join the funeral procession from the church to the cemetery for your 99 year old aunt with your sea kayaks on the car…
Go off the beaten path, rock climbing in Chacos, to get that perfect photo!
Play tag with the toddler… while shopping.
Run EVERYWHERE.
Sing songs even toddlers find annoying.
Do back country routes and call it working.