what’s in your closet? take the hireheels challenge
You might have seen that March 1 kicked off National Women’s History Month, the national project to give women past and present their due. Click to learn more about the project and this year’s honorees (note: our gal Hil is one of them!). You can also dig a little deeper into the history and types of feminism, too. Like most other -isms, feminism has lots of different flavors and you can’t tell them apart without a program. Do “real” feminists 
approve or disapprove of adult DVDs? Do we want to elect lots of women to office regardless of their platforms or do we have particular standards for the ones we will support? Do we wear makeup and shave our legs or not? There’s no one true “feminist” answer to these questions. Dig around for the answers that suit you best. But don’t stop there.
For this National Women’s History Month, Hireheels double-dog dares ya to explore your own history. What stories lurk in the back of your closet, waiting to be unpacked and examined? Was your own mother a housewife, a Supermom, a career dynamo? Was she happy with her options, her opportunities, her level of self-determination, her life? Were her contemporaries supportive of her or not? Can you reinterpret her successes or failures as a person with the answers to those questions?
Examine your own history. Do you automatically put the well-being of everyone else in your life before your own? Do you treat yourself more harshly than you would a best friend in your shoes? Are you always the note-taker at a staff meeting, even though you outrank half the men at the meeting? Do you automatically step aside on the sidewalk when a bunch of men walk toward you, or make yourself as small as possible on a subway seat while the man next to you spreads out as much as he can? (Try holding your lane of the sidewalk when faced with oncoming suits for a change. Watch the surprised reactions. I love how powerful I feel simply by claiming my space as my own.) Do you challenge people who excuse bad behavior from men with any answer resembling “boys will be boys”?
Feminism, no matter what Rush Limbaugh says, isn’t about hating men (well, most of it’s not). Feminism is about, among other things, recognizing that the world doesn’t have to be the way it’s always been, and that we can remake it to value us in all of our kaleidoscopic variety.
You ARE every woman, so, I challenge you to learn about women who change the world, and unpack your closet so you can change your own.
on March 4th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Right on Minxie!!! Welcome back.
xx
sista
on March 4th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
it looks like now we,v got the whole hh crew back its good to all you girls made it back
on March 4th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
good read thanks.i knew our girl would be there..
on March 4th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
how awesome is this post minxie?!?!? indeed, i was crying and dancing….i especially LOVED LOVED LOVED the part about moving out of the way for the suits….i do that all the time…no more!!!!!!
on March 4th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Minxie, you left me wordless. Welcome back, and please keep writing.
on March 4th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Princess, darling! You go ahead and hold your turf, sweetheart. Of course, go ahead and defer politely when it’s the right thing to do….for anyone who’s clearly having difficulty navigating the sidewalk, for example. But you’ll be shocked, I tell you, when you realize how powerful it is to simply claim your own space, especially in the path of men who have no idea that they’re hogging yours. (I can’t claim credit for the idea. Read about it years ago and it hit me like an anvil on the head.)
on March 4th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
thinking of buying that MediaMalpractice guy’s movie. the 1st half is supposed to tell about how the media screwed hilllary over. it sounds pretty good. i’m glad someone is exposing the media for what it is.
he’s definitely making waves boogie! Here he is on Mornin’ Joe…
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
on March 4th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
what a wonderful post, manolo—thank you so much!
you know, the one thing i love about getting old is that you don’t have to please people (esp. men) anymore and you really don’t have to put up with a whole hell of alot! Sadly, you never really had to……. but were taught to.
well, honey, school is out! and i’ve graduated and am all growed up. It is so free-ing, when you realize that the power you want to have is the power you actually have. and I am so lucky that i am married to a man who agrees wholeheartedly with me and loves his feministarella!
of course, margaret mead said : “every time you liberate a woman, you liberate a man”. It’s very true.
and my 85 yr old southern prim and proper mother ditched her bra this past year……she wants to be like me! what a hoot! so, we’re just a couple of wild and crazy texas gals down here, livin’ the life. (and our family loves it!)
well, happy rootin’ tootin’ women’s herstory month, y’all!
on March 4th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
just saw your new splash page princess when i herd that star wars them i couldn’t help thinking that if there was one person in that movie that o identify perfectly with he it would be darth vader. up vader & o could be one in the same.
on March 5th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Hireheels blog’s been at the cobbler all day — our sincere apologies for the inconvenience!!!!
on March 5th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
thats ok princess its all good
thanks bm – we’re trying to improve site, but hit a minefield instead….
another lovely day on wall street – where do we go from here….argh!
on March 5th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Don’t worry about the blog Princess and Sista. I appreciate all your hard work to keep this site running. I’m in awe that you can do it while everything else is going on.
My one foray into the world of news today showed the Prez rambling on about health care. Seriously? Seriously? I’m all for health care at some point in the future, but which part of “the counntry is broke” does he not understand? I guess none of those White House tv’s are tuned to CNBC.
Boogie, I had the same thought about “Star Wars”. What a hoot! At least we can always get a giggle around here.
on March 5th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
hey looks like the chosen one has gone from my hope & change to mr doom & gloom .if 0-vader . would just talk a little positive maybe the markets would head north 4 a change.
im going to make a prediction 0-vader will be the 1st bald prezz…i to avoid looking his way at all cost, but it seems that everytime i see him that fuzz is looking thinner & thinner.
AMEN to more positive talk….one can hope & pray
on March 5th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
i still think we should get a party going that way maybe we can forget some of our probs ….
when the market hits 10,000 – nothing to celebrate til then!!
on March 5th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
hireheelers,
here’s another great resource on Women’s History Month:
on March 5th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
Here is a vid of Hillary’s Nato Speech:
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1705667530/bctid14845484001
on March 6th, 2009 at 12:29 am
I used to own a 500 seat Disco,back when Disco was Queen, and I had a staff of six or seven. One was a petit little thing working her way through school, and she would come back to the bar part way through the night, just exhausted. One night I asked Laurie what the problem was, and she said that she had to fight her way through the men bussing tables. That the gay men just wouldn’t move for her, and she was too small to push them out of the way all night.
I told her there was a trick to it. When you get up behind a bunch of guys, lower your voice as much as you can, and in as close to a baritone as you can get, politely yell, “Excuse me.” and they will part like the Red Sea.
She came back about fifteen minutes later, laughing, and said that it worked like a charm. I told her that it worked because most men in our society deal with primarily other men. They simply aren’t used to reacting to female voices or to female needs, i.e. spacial considerations, etc..
I was involved with a peer counseling group back then, also, and among the topics that we went through with each new group, was for them to notice the difference in how men use space. In a room, men will always sit with their legs out, claiming as much space as is reasonable, where women will always pull in, and try to be compact.
We did speaking engagements at local colleges and universities for gay rights too, and I would always begin my talks by asking how many straight men had been approached by a gay man at some point in their lives. A bunch of hands would go up. Then I would ask how many straight women had been approached by a lesbian, and maybe one or two might react. Then I would ask how many women had been approached repeatedly by straight men when they didn’t show any interest, or even tried to discourage it. Pretty much every woman would raise their hand, and they would all start laughing. Then I would simply point out that our culture teaches men to be aggressive, and our women to not be aggressive, and it doesn’t make any difference what the sexual orientation is.
People came to a very rapid understanding that the real difference wasn’t who we were attracted to, but how the society had trained us. It takes a lot for men or women to move out of those molds, and if you do, there will be consequences. That will only change when enough of us stop minimizing our spacial profile, and begin taking up whatever area we need.
on March 12th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
speaking of closets – you’ll enjoy this one!
on March 25th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
I was reading the entry regarding women, and wanted to tell you about the most amazing woman I have ever or will ever know. Her name was Della, and she was my grandmother. My mother was her only child, and my mother had 7 children by 2 husbands and disappeared out of our lives when I was 11 years old. We had always lived with my grandparents, and where we lived was a very poor area. We had no running water or plumbing, just an old well in the yard with a bucket that you lowered into the well, then poured that bucket into another to take into the house. My grandmother and grandfather raised all of us kids, they both worked at the same cannery, and between the two of them we ate every day, and had all the basics. My grandmother was a human dynamo. She and pa lived through the depression, so they knew how to conserve and how to make it in the tough times. They also had depression error values. My grandfather didn’t believe in credit, you saved your money and when you had enough, then you bought what you needed. Ma worked every single day of her life. Through the week she worked at the factory, Saturdays were spent in the farmers fields picking strawberries, turnip greens,kale, collards, whatever was available and she would can or freeze them. Sundays was church but it was also housecleaning, laundry, (we actually had one of those old fashioned wringer washers). But in our house, there was no “this is woman’s work or this is man’s work”. My grandfather gave us young ones our baths, brushed our hair, helped with homework. Ma was very adept at fixing the roof, nailing shingles, cutting grass and even climbing trees to rescue my younger brothers who climbed to high. And she was in her 60′s when this was going on. She taught all of us girls to do what you needed to do to care for your family. She taught us how to live within your means, and she taught us by example that being a girl doesn’t mean you can’t climb trees and nail shingles. She lived to be a ripe 102 years old, and died last year. She was an inspiration all through my life and that of my sisters as well. All 4 grandaughters went to college and earned degrees. She only had a 3rd grade education herself, but she made sure all of us grandkids graduated from high school and was so proud of our college diplomas. She valued work and worked at the same cannery for 73 years, retiring at the age of 87. She earned her own claim to fame with her work history, earning two television interviews and 3 newspaper stories, and in each interview she bragged on her grandkids. She left us with a living legacy. One we all try and live up to. But the greatest thing she taught us was being a woman was no excuse to not suceed, but the reason we would succeed. And I really really miss that woman.
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