For my fellow lady types

By Roz Young, December 18 2011

It’s a pretty good time to have a vagina. Things aren’t perfectly balanced between the sexes, and I’m not sure if they’ll ever be, but I think we’re a generation that can embrace our femininity while becoming accomplished, professional ladies. There’s no reason that we can’t enjoy indulging our girly sides AND expect to be taken seriously as confident, respectable women. You just have to own it.

When I was in high school, I spent a long time trying to convince a woman several years my senior that my love for Sailor Moon did not make me a disgrace to my gender. In her opinion, the show portrayed women as vacuous boobs and the girls were terrible role models for young ladies. I politely had to agree to disagree. That probably meant I gave her a typical teenage sneer and what I’m sure was an acidic and clever “Nu uh”! I was at the height of my eloquence and grace.

Part of the appeal for me is the way the girls of Sailor Moon are flaky teens. Well, Sailor Moon is. That’s kind of the point. She has to grow up and learn to be less selfish in order to take her place as a leader and hero. We don’t start out awesome. We push ourselves and it’s hard. See, it’s deep. And then she gets her into her ridiculously cute mini skirt and inappropriately low cut leotard to defeat the evil space queen and other assorted villainous types. Yeah, my argument kind of falls apart here, but I stand by how much I love it. Girls like things that are pretty. I’m ok with that.

If you want to discuss or flame me with your thoughts on Sailor Moon, I welcome the messages. Of course, if you haven’t seen the episodes or movies in the original Japanese, or read any of the comics, I doubt I can take you too seriously. Sailor Moon has layers people, and lots of them don’t translate too well into a heavily edited and poorly dubbed YTV show for kiddies. I’m also not alone, so if I don’t agree with you, I might just get a few girlfriends together, suit up into some schoolgirl threads, and kick your ass.

Now that I’m older and with some edumacation under my belt, the gender issue comes up more for career women in the baby making years. Myself, I’m not that interested in babies. I’m guessing I have a defective brain fold somewhere in the “nurture and mother” things lobe. It’s probably been scrapped to make extra room for zombie lore. But I think that women who choose their career over reproducing, or women who decide to be full-time mommies, and all the ladies who manage some degree of both, should be proud of whatever they accomplish if they have given it their best. We need to support each other, rather than be judgemental and critical. Do what makes you happy and everyone else can deal with it.

Ok, so the gender issue is out there. Women are still paid less for the same work and in academia, it’s tough. Dr. Laura Frost, a professor emeritus from the University of Alberta, has been giving lectures on this topic and gave an entire course in Austria on gender in education and professional life. It turns out, even women will select a male candidate with the same qualifications over a female applying for the same job. If you want to see an example of her course syllabus from a lecture in Calgary, check out this link. There are selected readings at the end if you’re curious.
www.ucalgary.ca/wao/files/wao/Careers%20in%20science_UofC_October-2011.pdf
Now that we’re all friends, I want women everywhere to know that it’s ok to be a girl. I don’t think you are failing the great feminists of the past, women who fought so we could attend school and be able to vote, if you look deep inside yourself and can’t escape a few gender stereotypes. If you like to knit and bake and wear pink, that’s awesome! And if you also like to kick box and shoot things, more power to you. I’m talking to you Erin, go ahead and enjoy your Wonder Woman baking gadgets. You define what it is to be a woman and you don’t need to justify yourself to anyone. Plus, Wonder Woman is cool.