International Women's Day - Oh Ho Hum!!

The dichotomy between ladylike and free and easy. I love both of these and am not sure why they need to be mutually exclusive. 

I am now gonna bravely stick my head above the parapet and ask why we need this?

Yeh I know that there is about as many whinges to be shouted as there are women to shout 'em, and there is stuff that goes on that needs to be addressed. And yeh there are too many to mention, women who are doing great stuff all the time.

I just wonder why we need a day to celebrate or notify or campaign or protest about it all.

I can't help feeling that it all becomes trite and perfunctory and not really at all self-serving or satisfactory.

As I was driving up to Brisvegas yesterday I had the radio blaring and every channel I switched to had some self congratulating woman going on about it all and bigging herself up because she was playing songs by women singers, and I guess it pointed out to me that apart from the harpies, the music content was pretty much the same as any other day. I really wondered what all the nonsense was about.

Then when my girl told me of her day, I realised that actually women are our own worst enemies. It's not always the menfolk who keep us down.

My lovely works hard. She wears her steel capped boots with pride and she is never happier than when she is sweating up a storm and driving some machine that would seriously scare the shit out of me. Yesterday a customer came in and said to her, ' I want a man to serve me'. Bell repiled, 'This is your lucky day cos I am your man.' She had to convince the customer that she was the only person there to serve and so reluctantly she was allowed to throw about 50 besser blocks onto the ute. She managed to carry 2 at a time - better by far than me. I reckon I might have been good if I could have toppled one into a wheel barrow and toted 'em that way.

There was no gracious, 'Thank you' or anything of that ilk. Just a hurried exit.

The customer was a woman.

Belly called her a lady, but I don't even know what that means anymore. Is a lady someone who wears the right clothes and doesn't swear, and is aglow instead of sweaty?  Is she someone who has a clear expectation of what a female should do and what a man should do?

While we as women play the sex card, how can we expect men not to?

So I say bahumbug to a special day for women. I would so much prefer us all just to look up and speak for ourselves all the time. I would like us to acknowledge greatness without pausing to comment on gender. I would like it if women weren't lining up to put each other down.

And I'd like this ALL the time not just on one silly day of the year, cos somehow that seems to me to be a license to forget about it for the rest of the year.

Did you do something yesterday that made you proud to be a woman? 
How about today?