International Women's Day - a day of thanks and celebration!

Today is International Women’s Day. It comes once a year but is worked on every day in some women’s lives. March 8^th is the day where women sport purple ribbons to show respect, love and gratitude to each other for fighting for equality and for enhancing economic security for women and their families globally. It is also a day to recognize that continued effort is necessary for security (personal and economic) to one day be a reality for women everywhere.

It’s a day that is underreported but is imperative to acknowledge. We all have mothers, sisters, nieces, aunts, cousins, colleagues or friends that are female, so we all have to have something to do with bringing about equality for women.

I tried to write down a list of the women who have inspired me for one reason or other and it became increasingly hard because of how many incredible women I have admired from afar or have had in my life to encourage the person that I am.

I do know, from the lessons I’ve learned from them that there is no other time that I would rather live for the opportunities I have available to me, for the people that have made where I am easier, for the luxuries I enjoy and the life that I live. For every woman and man who have helped get us here – thank you.

It’s never attractive to call yourself a feminist but today, I’m quite proudly one because I can work if I want to, I can be an at home mum if finances permit and again, if I want to. I can have children or choose not to. I can wear pants (even though I prefer skirts), but I can also figuratively wear the pants in the office, in relationships, in any situation I see fit.

I can dream beyond the borders of my house, desk or office. I can get out of bed and not have to make it. I can care and be cared for. I can nurture and I can be nurtured. I can wear heels or flats and stand just as tall in both.

I can speak or keep silent (and both will be my choice). I can scream or I can whisper. I can giggle or I can boisterously laugh.

I can dream and I can be and nobody can stop me on the way.

To my grandmother and mum – you have overcome obstacles and faced them more courageously than can be written about. You are women that have the softest hearts but the strongest conviction. You are resilient yet you are gentle, you are persistent yet you are patient, you are strong yet you are sweet. You are faithful. You are loving. You are inspiring and you are perfect. I know no love more unconditional. I know no love more serving. I know no love more selfless. If every woman was modeled on the women you are, women would be unstoppable. If I am anything, it is because you are everything.

To my sister – you are a wealth of wisdom. You have played mum from my birth and even when it was annoying to have me tag along to every outing, traipsing close behind you wherever you went – there is no better shadow for me to have been protected in. Your love has always enveloped my heart. You taught me every lesson before I cared to know it but it’s because of that foreknowledge that you armed me with, that I became as strong as I am, as cautious of my surroundings and became as fearless in my dreams. My biggest support, my loudest cheer, my closest friend – there is no greater blessing than the one that comes in a sister.

To my friends and extended family – you are amazing! You all inspire goodness in me. You encourage my dreams, you boost my ego, you make me laugh, you restore my faith in humanity, you heal my broken heart, you lift me when I am miserable. You are my joy and my life. Every day is worth living with you guys in it. You see good in everything. You are honest in your words and in your love. You teach me the value of relationships, the secret to the success of them and the power of prayer. You are all my miracles.

To my boss, who took a chance on me and believed in my success; Thank YOU! You are a woman who encourages dreams and lives them. You are someone who nurtures success, has broken the glass ceiling and proven the power of persistence. I will always be grateful for the support you give women in this industry. I will never stop learning and re-teaching your wisdoms and when I have achieved all I have hoped I will remember it was you who helped me get there (and now it’s in writing so you can hold me to it).

 I could go on forever about the women in my life but here is a gallery of women in the world who also inspire me and work for the improved welfare of women around the world. My hat goes off to these women (in no particular order).

Here are the first few that sprang to mind (I'm sure I've missed about a billion others) 


1. Oprah Winfrey -
She doesn't really need an explanation. You know I love her. You know I want to be her. A large bulk of women do. I love a rags to riches story and after an incredibly tumultuous and traumatic childhood, Oprah rose above her situation to make Forbes lists, inspire good in others, build a school for disadvantaged girls in Africa 

2. Somaly Mam - 
    I fell in love with this woman when I read her memoir "The Road of Lost Innocence." It's the true story of  a Cambodian heroine (Somaly) who was sold into prostitution at the age of 12, survived a lifetime of trauma and escaped to co-found AFESIP to combat the sexual trafficking of young girls and women. Her organisation has rescued, rehabilitated and reintegrated over 4000 women since its inception in 1996. She's amazing and the book is  one of the most moving memoir's I've ever read. Makes you want to fly to Cambodia and save everyone. 

3. Ariana Huffington
Founder of the Huffington Post - Another Media Mogul that I'd love to emulate. In 2009 she was named #12 on the Forbes Most Influential Women in Media List (another dream of mine). She manages to be a mum and a media big-wig all at once. She seems so classy and sophisticated and I'd love to meet her  and run a website as successful and as intelligent as The Huffington Post. 

4. Mother Teresa
She too needs no explanation or introduction. If everyone was as virtuous, as selfless, as unassuming as Mother Theresa, we would have no war - just love. She founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta.She ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned and dying. At the time of her death she had 610 missions in 123 countries including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counselling programmes, orphanages and schools. She received numerous awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. One of my most favourite life lessons come from this quote: "I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."

5. Margaret Thatcher
The longest serving British Prime Minister in the 20th Century and the only woman to have held the post. On the 4th of May in 1979 she is remembered as paraphrasing the words of St.Francis which read: "Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope." To her supporters, Margaret Thatcher is still revered. Her followers see a leader who restored Britain's economy, curbed the trade unions, and re-established the nation as a world power. I don't agree with all of her policies but love that she was a woman that had the power to make them.

6. Germaine Greer
One of the most vocal and active feminists of the 20th Century. She is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and a reason why so many of us have the freedoms we do. She fights for female liberation as a distinctly different thing from women's equality. Her battle has been about positively embracing difference in gender to help women delineate their own role, values and priorities in society. 

7. Dr Fiona Wood
Creator of spray-on skin for burns victims, named Australian of the Year in 2005. Amazing woman, amazing surgeon, enviable brain. 

8. Angelina Jolie
She was a bit crazy to begin with but she is someone that has used her wealth and fame for good. She is a UN Ambassador, speaks fluently and learnedly on the Refugees in Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Cambodia. Has six children, is a great actress, has countlessly been labelled the most beautiful woman in the world, loved her mum, adores her husband, worships her kids and has won a stack of humanitarian awards....and rocks an Oscars frock even with an awkwardly protruding leg.

9. Coco Chanel 
Wish I wasn't this superficial - but this is another amazing rags to riches tale. She was an orphan who never accepted her poverty as her fate. She created an empire that is classic, sophisticated and hugely influential on 20th century fashion and she makes women the world over feel and look fabulous (true at least for all who can afford it). She proved through her story that class and sophistication do not come from wealth. She had it long before her label.  

10. Rosa Parks
One woman who inspired one of the most powerful and peaceful protests in the civil rights movement in the US in 1955. Simply by refusing to get up from her seat on the bus, she helped spark the Montgomery Bus Boycott and stood up for civil rights of the black community. She is labelled "the mother of the freedom movement," and "the first lady of civil rights." She would have made an awesome nanna! Many people owe their freedom to her resistance. So fierce. So fabulous! 

Break up and shut up!

Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston’s divorce is old news so six years since the break up, the marriage should not be spoken of unfavorably. This week in entertainment news, Brad Pitt succumbed to media pressure to spill the beans on his split with Jennifer Aniston in an exclusive interview with Parade magazine. The beans left a bitter taste in the mouths of gossip consumers globally. He cheated, and then justified his actions by bad-mouthing the victim. 

Aniston commented after the split that Pitt was missing a ‘sensitivity chip,’ and it seems she was right (even though it was wrong to bad mouth, she had a bit more right considering he cheated).

I’ve never believed that following a break up you can become good friends with each other; that is too painful and too murky. Sure enough, this interview should do the trick to end Brad’s faux friendship with the former Friends star.

I’ve heard many stories in my short life on why old wounds can never heal with the presence of an ex. 

Firstly, it makes it very difficult to see what’s next if you’re still friends with an ex. 

I know of one instance where a break up was over and a man returned to a friend to tell her that she was still the greatest catch he’d ever come across. Of that he was sure. 

I say, if you can’t catch the catch, then simply don’t play ball. After breaking her heart, he returned many unattached times to reminisce on the good times he had but never with a promise of return or an apology. He never accepted his part in the break up or the pain and remained a painful existence instead.  His presence was toxic, agonizing and stifled her growth. While it served his ego and killed his conscience, his relationship back-tracking was a waste of both of their times and emotions. It’s called a break up because it’s broken. At that point, if it’s not marriage, you step away. If it is marriage, you fight for it, not comment on how “dull” it was for you (ala Brad Pitt). I was once told if you ever feel bored in the place that you are, then the only boring person within that place is you. I’m a big believer in making light of most situations, having fun wherever I go and leaving everything I touch with the knowledge that I did everything I could to maximize that situation. Living like that means living without regrets and for me, that’s the only option in life. 

When my friend’s ex would later speak of the break up he would speak about her inability to complete him, not his inability to keep her. Perhaps the better thing to have said or concluded would just be that they were simply incompatible, that it was a relationship with some good but not enough to sustain a relationship for life.

There was another instance that I was close to in which it took four years for another lovelorn girl to recover from the salacious lies that her ex had spread. It was four years before they could even look at each other. Four years before he admitted his flaws to others but at that point, the gossip was spread, the damage was irreparable and the memory of what they almost had would always be tainted because of the dishonorable way it ended. 

It should be a general rule that when love ends, conversations about it should too. Of course both parties should be allowed the acceptable grieving period where they go through the motions of healing. 

Take time to get over the shock of the split, come to terms with the fact that you’ll no longer be together, don’t adopt denial in the belief that seeing each other might reignite old feelings. When you realize it’s over, find an outlet for your anger, and rise from the depression by looking optimistically at the happiness that may later come. Once you accept that, you’ll quickly notice the men/women out there ready to make you smile again. 

An ex serves a great purpose to shape the person you become. Through the experience you learn what you do and don’t want in a person. You learn about the greatness of receiving love, and you perfect your ability to give it because of the raised standards that you have for yourself at the end of it.

It is no great service to society for you to stop somebody else from finding love because it didn’t work out with you. Your trash may be someone else’s treasure and no matter the heartbreak, the pain or the time it takes to heal, you at least have the lessons to treasure and a better you to show for it. 

Everybody deserves somebody and you’d hate to be responsible for someone else's loneliness.

The perfect pout....on Men

pout ¹ (pout)

v. pout·ed, pout·ing, pouts

v.intr.

1. To exhibit displeasure or disappointment; sulk.

2. To protrude the lips in an expression of displeasure or sulkiness.

3. To project or protrude.

When Angelina Jolie's perfect pout went global and the use of collagen became the new black to achieve it - I never in a million years would have thought that men would proudly parade the pout too!
 
The problem with this is the perfect pout is creeping up on every profile picture of every potential boyfriend on every social networking site I'm connected on. The perfect pout is proving enormously imperfect for me.
 
I'm beginning to realize I have a type. It's not an uncommon type so I know you'll get it - I like them tall, dark and handsome - and occasionally I attract them.

We get talking – then take it to the next level (meaning we become Facebook friends).  I add them, I scroll through photos, and then I bear witness to their pouting.

Then I pout (but not in the same way - more in a damn-it here comes another pretty boy way).
 
I'm not sure what possessed these pouters but as far as I'm concerned the pouting has to come to a halt.
 
You see, I was speaking to a very attractive, very intelligent, very accomplished man - his laugh was likable, his looks were too, his intelligence ticked the third important box and just as I started to fall head over heels, his profile photo ensured I stayed firmly seated - this relationship would go no further. This relationship COULD go no further.

It's future was tarnished by his flirting faux pas - the profile photo and the pout within. He's one of many men to disappoint in this arena.
 
Unless you're Derek Zoolander or satirizing the satire - your pout should have no place on my news feed.

My girlfriend’s and I make fun of the girls that pout so you boys should feel free to as well, but I take issue when every photo of you has you sporting that look.
 
You may think I'm being petty and superficial but this is serious business!

If  'A picture says a thousand words' then a photo of a man pouting says; I endorse collagen, I'm a little bit in love with myself, I'm all about hooking up, I'm a tad feminine to which I say;
 
I've lost all interest!
 
Few people proudly post unflattering images of themselves on Facebook, Twitter or MySpace. They put their best face forward because if they are being searched for or stalked by a love interest, they'd like you to poke them, like them or positively comment on them. With that knowledge it puzzles me to see pouts proudly posted as a person's best face.
 
The pout in men is the perfect example of how social networking sites are stifling romance and relationships. It exposes us to too much before a relationship has any time to develop but in this world with so many choices to make and so little time to make them, it's imperative that we see and know more fairly quickly, in order to make the best and most informed decision in every aspect of our lives.
 
While I agree that we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, I'm puzzled when the book has chosen a cover that inspires such judgment.
 
Social networking is socially not-working for me - but surely I can't be the only woman who is passing on the pout.