Girl Talk: “Being” vs.”Doing”

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said something to the effect that everybody wants to “be” somebody instead of wanting to “do” something that will change the world.

I would probably edit her observation to say that we want to “be” somebody who is physically beautiful, rather than be like an unattractive woman who actually changed the world.

I didn’t like Margaret Thatcher’s politics, but she was a woman who knew herself and who walked in her strengths. It seemed that she was not at all consumed with looking a certain way so that she could be labeled as an attractive woman. In spite of her skill as a leader of a major world power, one almost never hears little girls saying they would like to be like her, or like Hillary Clinton, or like Mary McLeod Bethune.

No, young girls, egged on by their mothers, would rather “be” the next Paris Hilton (for whatever reason, I do not understand), or like Marilyn Monroe or Beyonce Knowles. The desire to “be” is based much on how these women looked, not what they have done in or for the world.

If we complain that we considered to be sex objects rather than human beings, then we have ourselves to blame as much as the men about whom we complain. I have watched snippets of parents putting their very young daughters in beauty pageants, teaching them to capitalize on their looks, rather than learning their gifts and talents and building upon those things.

The tendency of white parents to push their daughters forward as sex objects is no less regrettable than black parents pushing their sons to aspire to be professional athletes. In both cases, the little girls and boys become objects that will be used to make someone else big bucks, even after their beauty or athletic ability has long gone.

The hardest part about watching us women trying to “be” somebody else rather than to “do” something of significance in and for the world is that it is always futile to try to be somebody else. No matter how hard one tries, all one can be is oneself. Yes, we can get tummy tucks and dye our hair and get breast implants and any number of other things to enhance or change what people see, but in the end, I find myself wondering if we do that at the expense of taking care of how we feel.

It is good that beauties are all around us. Halle Berry, Jennifer Hudson, Natalie Morales – there are so many beautiful women who are also doing things.

It would be a good thing if we began to teach our daughters that it is OK to look at someone and admire how they look, and even take tips on how we might fix our hair or makeup…but that it is never OK to lose ourselves in trying to be someone else.

At the end of the day, the beauty and sexiness for which we crave are so fleeting. Long after beauty fades and being “sexy” doesn’t work anymore, the world would be better if it had more women who decided that, just as they were, they were better than just “OK,” and who forged ahead to help pave the way for real change in a very troubled and complex world.

A candid observation …

Nothing New Under the Sun

It is the most sickening story.

A video, released by the British newspaper The Observer shows women from a protected tribe in India’s Andaman Islands dancing, some naked, in exchange for food.

The women belong to a primitive tribe named the Jarawa, which was thought to be one of the first tribes to successfully migrate from Africa to Asia. They are supposedly protected by Indian law from being bothered or traumatized, but tourists apparently bribed a police officer, who then led the tourists to them, and lured the women to dance for the tourists in exchange for food.

The video is thought to have been taken some years ago, but that does not take away the disgust that someone would treat human beings as though they were nothing for what feels like “30 pieces of silver.”

It is sad, but unfortunately not surprising that a colonial mindset exists that makes people think that it is all right to treat human beings as objects. Because a person is a darker hue or has less education does not make that person or, in this case, these women, of less value than a person who lives in a city, has money to travel, and has education.

The story made me wonder how these tourists would feel if the tables were reversed, if members of the Jarawa came to England or America and found American women in compromised situations, but desperate and unaware of how cruel the world can be, and willing to do almost anything-for food.

I remember the first time I went to Africa. Just out of college, the group of us traveling was reminded that the Africans were human beings with feelings, and that to go around just taking pictures of them would be offensive. “Think about how uncomfortable you would feel,” our teacher said, “if you were sitting on your porch and some foreigner came along and, without your permission, began taking pictures of you.”

Enough said. I understood.

The story about the Jarawa tribal women is bad in and of itself, but the fact that a police officer – someone who is supposed to be a protector of all people- took a bribe and then used his authority to participate or worse, initiate barbaric treatment of fellow human beings, is just plain sad and wrong.

V. Kishore Chandra Deo, who is India’s Minister of Tribal Affairs, voiced umbrage; “you cannot treat human beings like beasts for the sake of money,” he said.

In theory that is true, and it is morally correct, but it is a fact that humans have treated other humans like beasts for the sake of money from the beginning of time.

In the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, “the preacher” bemoans that there is “nothing new under the sun.” How true, and how sad, that, even as civilization in terms of science and technology has taken societies higher and higher, there has been little progress in those same civilizations as pertains to the way people treat other people. I would bet that the police officer who took the bribe, and the tourists who squealed with delight as the Jarawa women danced for them while they threw bananas and biscuits at them, or on the side of the road that leads to their village, go to church every Sunday.

A candid observation …

(To read the story, visit this link: http://news.yahoo.com/outrage-over-human-zoo-indian-islands-114059047.html)

Disrespect Shown President and his Wife is Regrettable

Is it just me or does it appear that this family, specifically this First Lady, has been “joked” about more than any other First Lady, and in the most degrading way?

The most recent affront to the First Lady of this country came just last week, when the Kansas House Speaker, Republican Mike O’Neal, emailed a cartoon which referred to Mrs. Obama as “Mrs. Yomama.” It compared the First Lady to the Grinch, a Dr. Seuss character, because in the photo, Mrs. Obama’s hair was windblown.

The text of the cartoon read, “I’m sure you’ll join me in wishing Mrs. YoMama a wonderful, long, Hawaii Christmas vacation – at our expense, of course.”

O’Neal later apologized, but it rang hollow. The disrespect shown to this President and his family, much with racist undertones, has been despicable. This event came just a couple of weeks after a Wisconsin Republican, Jim Sensenbrenner, commented on the size of Mrs. Obama’s behind, saying that she was a hypocrite for waging a war against obesity.

What the comments show, some of which the originators say are supposed to be “jokes,” is the underlying racism which leads to this horribly disrespectful attitude toward our president and his family. I am not sure how Mrs. Laura Bush or Mrs. Barbara Bush were joked about or commented upon when their husbands were in office. I don’t remember any jokes about them, but the larger fact is, there seemed to be sacred, protective veil around them which kept them insulated against such indignity. No matter their foils, imperfections or foibles, they were off limits.

Not so with Michelle Obama. From the beginning both she and the President have been the focus of some of the most demeaning, stereotypical images that seem to come from a racist American core that is full of virulence, hatred, fear, and resentment. These references and images also speak to an overlying arrogance that suggests that it is OK to disrespect this President and First Lady; after all, they are just (the “n”) word.

Is this blatant disrespect of President and Mrs. Obama as alive and as common as it is because they are African American? One cannot help but think so. Why didn’t anyone spew “jokes” about the physical characteristics of either of the Bush wives? Why didn’t we hear legislators joke about Nancy Reagan (although, to be fair, they did talk about Nancy Reagan’s presence in the White House; still, they were not disrespectful!), or about Betty Ford?

Racism, the American kind, is all over the world, because Americans have spread it. People in Europe have been “taught,” if you will, or “coached” in how to think about African Americans from white Americans themselves. It is galling to think that legislators are not stopping to think how their disrespect of the most powerful man in the world and his family is affecting the way people all over the world will think of them and refer to them as well.

To those who write and say such disparaging things, calling those statements “jokes,” understand something: there is nothing funny about what you are doing and saying. You are feeding the shame of America, which is its racism.

Our president and his family deserve the same respect that has been afforded all other presidents. Anything less than that is unacceptable, and legislators who engage in helping to spread or feed racist attitudes and feelings are agents of infection in a country where the infection has been rampant for far too long.

A candid observation…

Girl Talk: Becoming

I have decided that in 2012, every Thursday I will write an article just for us girls.

I’m going to call it “Girl Talk.”

And today, I want to ask a question: By this time next year, how do you want your life to look? Where do you want to be? What do you want to be doing?

The phrase “by this time next year” was brought to my attention via a sermon preached by Rev. Lance Watson, who preached a sermon entitled the same. Taken from the story of Abraham and Sarah, who were old and childless, the Lord tells them that they will have children.

They are old; it says in the 18th chapter of Genesis that “they were already old and well advanced in years, yet this promise to them was made by God. “I will surely return to you about this time next year and Sarah your wife will have a son.

Sarah was past the age of childbearing and she laughs; God hears her and asks why? He confronts Abraham, asking “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old” Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son.”

That sermon stayed with me, as did the question, and I have begun a women’s group here in Columbus called “Becoming.” The driver for the group is the statement, “By this time next year…” and the women have decided what they want and how they will get there “by this time next year.”

The idea behind the question and the work that we are doing is that we women, too many of us, are not even close to being what God created us to be. We have thwarted ourselves by comparing ourselves to other people; we carry low self esteem like it’s a part of our anatomy; we are not able to love ourselves and so our love relationships suffer. The fact is that too many of us do not realize who we are, and how innately gifted we are.

We need to “become” the people God created us to be.

I watched Michele Bachmann bow out of the 2012 Republican presidential campaign, and though I do not agree with her politics, it seems to me that she is a woman who has “become.” She has chutzpah and convictions and she is a bulldog in staying her course, in spite of sexism and all the other things she as a woman in man’s world has to face. She fought to be heard by media which really didn’t want to treat her as a serious candidate; she made herself heard.

She has “become” who God made her to be, and is still “becoming.” Think of what this world would be if more of us women would become.

Way too many of us stayed covered and protected, in cocoons or pupae, like butterflies or moths waiting to “become” the beauties that they are. There are a lot of reasons for that, but whatever the reason or reasons, we need to shed them.

The women in the group I began are moving. It is so inspiring to see! They are pushing out of their cocoons, trying things they always wanted to but were afraid to try. They are applying for jobs they always wanted to apply for, working to get their poetry published, no longer afraid of rejection. They are realizing that they have gifts that they have never used, and I can see them putting little toes in the water.Some of them by now are standing in the water they were afraid to even look at several months ago.

One of the members’ original goal was to have a husband “by this time next year.” Now, however, she has changed her goal. She is owning the fact that she has a gift for interior decorating and she is determined that by this time next year, she will be on her way to being able to do that as a living, something she loves and is passionate about. As she has made that decision, her spirit has resonated and she is actually drawing to herself clients who recognize her gifts and who want to use her.

She is “becoming.” She is pushing out of her cocoon. It is so exciting to watch!

Nobody in the group is allowed to just say what they will “be.” They are required to report on their progress on a monthly basis.

And so, if you asked yourself “by this time next year what do I want to be?” what would your answer be? Ask yourselves the question, and see if it doesn’t empower you.

Final thought: I am pushing out of my cocoon, too!

A candid observation…