I am Woman

Happy International Women’s Day.

I just checked Facebook and everyone’s wishing each other a happy I.W. Day. The front page of the paper is devoted to celebrating successful women. All blokes have gone into hiding. But I really don’t think we (the females) have gone far enough in our demands for today. Did Julia legislate a day off? Why the hell not? And furthermore… who’s cooking dinner?

I note with interest an article on the telly about women's body shapes being renamed from pieces of fruit to artists.

Can’t see it taking off though myself. How many people are going to say "Corrrrr, she's an alright piece of Rembrandt" or "It’s TUNA. I'm trying to lose the Reubens. I am WOMAN. Hear me DIET!)" or “Embrace your Donatello shape my child…ohmmmmm….” And why these old, Romantic Teenage-Mutant-Ninja artists? I want to be a Dali, you know, kinda dripping towards the ground and slightly burnished. I can’t even remember half the artists the body shapes are named after. It’s just easier to be a pear, banana or apple really.

But it raises a point for me. Where the hell are the men's shapes?

We don't get articles on what to name men's bodies after. I’ve taken a vote amongst my Reuben-esque bits and we think perhaps we’ll call men after vegetables. Like, ‘cucumber’ for tall, thin men, ‘tomato’ for squat red men (you know the ones…they look like Santa all year round) and ‘broccoli’ for the blokes with a big green head. And where's International Men's Day??? On second thought, let's not. Could you imagine? A men’s day would go for a week, involve a motor sport of some kind and I'd just have to heat up the sausage rolls and pick up afterwards anyway.

I celebrated today by…. ummm, going about my business, which is kind of the women's way don't you think?

 Let’s have a day to celebrate women and then make them overachieve all day like usual. We can do whatever men can do and vice versa, although I felt kind of queasy at the Post Office working out the ratio of male managers (1) to female servers (7) and wondered how far we'd actually come when the twenty-something next door offered me a Vodka & Cranberry for lunch to celebrate the auspiciousness of today... "because we CAN."

I was raised to believe that I could do anything. Except underachieve.

In the era of being bombarded by 'women can be mechanics or fighter pilots if they want' the message resounded loud and clear. Go hard or go home. On the other hand, boys of my era gave up a bit in the face of so many pro-girl messages. My brother (from the same gene pool and intelligence) was told he was ‘good with his hands’ whilst I was pushed into as many maths and sciences as humanly possible in an attempt to show girls they were equal to or better than those inferior boys over there. We were all about girl power and by golly did we achieve. By the time I finished high school in the late 80’s, my group of overachieving friends and I practically thought boys were only good for putting the bins out and that women would one day rule the world.

Not that any of our group ended up being the first female Prime Minister.

On international women's day the news was ablaze with Jool-ya in a classroom in the USA letting them all know how we're mooooov-ing forrrrrr-ward (cue hand movements) making us Aussie chicks proud by batting her eyelashes at Barry O and giggling about vegemite. Way to go for the women's movement there Jools. And for goodness sake luv, being a smart, progressive, modern woman doesn’t mean you have to dress like a K-Mart catalogue.

So now, due to the hard work in the mid to late twentieth century, the next gen of gals can benefit from being raised by women who lived through the ultra-capable superwoman era, the Hell Yes generation and Generation X-tra work. I see girls now who know they can do anything... so much so that some of them choose to do nothing. Girls who are so confident in their body that they just let it all hang out. Anywhere, anytime. I call them 'Generation Y-should-I' or 'Generation Y-the-hell-can't-I'?

And they've got a good point. The gals of today live in a world that changes constantly. They'll have a handful of careers, some of which haven't been invented yet and keep being told that the world will end anyway. Why shouldn't they just wanna have fun?

There’s a Gen Y-the-hell-can't-I on the teaching team at the tax course I'm doing on Tuesdays.

Kelly, the trainee assistant, rocks in kind of on time with her phone buzzing away, holding two takeaway coffees ("one for now, one for in a minute") and her job is to mark our homework according to the manual. Today, on International Women’s Day, Ms Kelly wore a skintight black skirt and a sheer (see-through actually) top with ruffles kind of covering a fluorescent pink bra. Her dreadlocks flowing, she called to us to "give in ya homework" which she looked fairly unthrilled about marking, then checked her email, facebook, texts and goodness knows what else, whilst the actual teacher smiled apologetically and told us how exciting Superannuation income streams could be. Since when can you wear sheer tops to work that fully show off a fluorescent pink bra? I'm not just talking the bra straps here. THE WHOLE THING. Apparently Gen Y-the-hell-not rules the roost in that office partnership.

Kelly left me thinking today about what each generation of women leaves the one to follow.

If my mother's generation's message to me was being able to have any career we wanted, is my generation teaching Kelly's that individuality means they can wear whatever the hell they want? Or is the shock of this new office wear just me being 'old'? Maybe I'm all for individuality in theory, but then cherish conformity in certain places. "Yes, be an individual dear... wear flourescent undies... just not to work... or to the shops...or a funeral...or anywhere really where people can see them...." Yes, the Boomers and Gen X are the rule enforcers and Gen Y aim to break them.

Perhaps the fact that Kelly is able to break the rules and make me question her officewear today is cause for celebration of today in the first place. Happy International Women’s Day. I’m off to make dinner. And get the washing in…

Oh yes I am wise

But it's wisdom born of pain

Yes, I've paid the price

But look how much I gained

If I have to, I can do anything

I am strong (strong)

I am invincible (invincible)

I am woman (and I can wear a pink bra to work if i want to....)

I am Woman, Helen Reddy, 1971. (wearing a turtleneck and brown flares with no showing of underwear whatsoever)



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