How do you burn a bra these days?
It’s ironic that the very first people who awakened the concept of feminism in me are the two most important men in my life: My grandfather and my dad. I remember early on my father would always say to me never to be a freeloader. He gave me a bar allowance when I was in second year high school so I wouldn’t let boys buy me drinks when I went out. Not exactly healthy parenting, but at least he was realistic. My grandfather said to always rely on myself and never wait for marriage to be secure.
Of course I got confused when my father almost beat up a teenage Romeo in my house after I paid for pizza that I had delivered to our house during a house date.
Mixed messages, indeed. So I never really listened to boys after that.
I grew up in a home where the woman was the absolute ruler. My mother brought home the bacon for almost 20 years. She funded my dad’s first congressional campaign with her savings, with no help from my grandfather. She made everything impossible possible. Everyone was afraid of her, even my dominant grandfather and our surly Dalmatian, Blake. She was queen, and I vied to inherit her crown.
Perhaps that’s where I get my nervy perception that I can truly have it all. I shouldn’t settle for something, when there is everything can be had. My mom knew the secret before Rhonda Byrnes let it out. I can have career, boys, family, social life and excellent wardrobe with no apologies.
I never felt defenseless being a girl. In fact, it made me more of a prick. I always felt women won. Look at Heather Locklear (in every role she has played), Alexis Colby, Murphy Brown and Veronica Mars. They are so much more interesting than their male counterparts — the forever-angry Jack Bauer, the conflicted Peter Petrelli and the snoozy and boozy J.R. Ewing.
The picture of a Neo-Suffragette is indeed a pleasant one. She wears Pradas and Guccis that are neither inherited nor gifts.
Female power is much more abstract yet its grip is much stronger and captivating (whereas with a man, all he needs is bucks, brawn and the occasional gun to get his way). A woman can make anything work for her. She can make a mountain out of a molehill without lifting a finger.
She can burn a company down with a single pout or lead a nation to its knees by singing a song. A woman who knows her power is indeed the most powerful one of all. History, over and over again, tells us that she doesn’t need to be beautiful to be the superstar. She convinces everyone of her beauty through her charms. Of course this sort of power play is not my ideal.
I figured that a woman’s power lies not in what she can make people do, but in what she can do for herself and onto others.
When I was in high school my friends would berate me for being forward with boys. I called older boys without a thought and asked them straight-out if they liked me when they were doing that horrible three-days-after-the-first-date call. I never listened to my more conservative friends; the ball was always in my court.
Some girls occasionally called me a slut, but that never fazed me because I always felt like I was in control. I figured “slut” was what they saw in the mirror when they looked at themselves. I was more intent on self-preservation: even then, I didn’t need no flake in my life and if I wanted something to happen it could. Anyway, the boys who didn’t like that dance bored me.
I never have had a single “what if” in all my life. I do everything I feel I should do. Down to apologizing for appalling behavior to laughing off hideous first dates.
Nothing much has changed these days, but now it has extended to jobs, cocktail parties and the occasional nemesis. If someone bothered me, I would just tell them. Better to grab the devil by its horns, right?
Over matters I previously pointed out, it’s all a matter of phrasing it. One never got dumped; instead it “dissolved.” One never got fired but rather just “grew out of the job.” One never was broke, but was just “financially challenged.” Everything had to sound good, and because it sounded good through my own dexterity, I felt good.
Then a few years ago, the very same woman who taught me how to be more than a man also taught me the limitations of being a woman and a bitch.
You see, the secret to my mother’s power was that she never showed her fangs. Greenhorn dominatrix that I was, I was so greedy for power and control that I left skid marks of hooves wherever I went.
I tried to achieve that power the manly way. It’s like walking in O.J.’s Bruno Magli shoes. She did everything with grace. She was friendly with opposing parties without any of them raising an eyebrow. Her loyalty was to loyalty itself, never betraying the confidences of others. She never used information, friendships or even money itself as currency. It was, in her eyes, the trick of a desperate man.
She always got what she wanted in the most natural manner: by asking. It’s easy to forget that all you have to do sometimes to get what you want is to ask.
She was sweet when she got what she wanted. When she didn’t she would exhaust every avenue until it was hers. Occasionally she would implode and throw a chair or two… she was human, after all.
The one thing that kept her from being Leona Helmsley (although she is definitely close to leaving everything to her two dogs) was her ability to understand men.
My mother always felt they were the easiest to deal with. No complicated emotions and more wont to do wrong than right.
She forgave relentlessly and humanly used the residual guilt as her trump card. She knew that, for every three steps, a man was more than likely to trip on the second one than her. She understood that it was not getting ahead that got her somewhere, but helping the bruised man and gaining his confidence. She knew that power was more compelling in numbers than as a solo act.
She was born in a time when women started working for the first time in their lives because of the war. (I love hinting how old she really is.) She was a student/model when feminists burned their bras. She ran off to
She loves to say she is “retired.” I always secretly laugh when she says that. Knowing her, she knows that a woman’s job is never done.
