What's a Girl To Do?

I finally had a chance to read the Maureen Dowd article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine titled "What's A Modern Girl To Do?"

A lot of my friends have emailed me to ask if I'd read it and told me I should but none really said why I should read it or what about it touched a nerve or made them think.

So now that I've read it, here's my take. HELLO. Tell us something we don't know already Maureen!

OK. That said, I do think it's important for this issue to be written about by a respected journalist in the mainstream media. The issue being the feminist backlash that is affecting women in very negative ways, whether we see it or not.

She talks about dating, the workplace, movies, beauty and all of her points are true and valid. Yes, women want men to pay on dates but we also want to make equal money. We are tired of having as she says, "girl money." Yes, we want to be loved for who we are yet we spend billions on cosmetics and cosmetic surgeries, botox, liposuction all to make ourselves appealing to men.

Here are some quotes from Dowd's article that I circled as I read it.

"Maybe we should have known that the story of women's progress would be more of a zigzag than a superhighway, that the triumph of feminism would last a nanosecond while the backlash lasted for 40 years." See that's why someone like Maureen had to write this article. She knows how to put it in to words, what we are experiencing but not sure how to articulate. The backlash has indeed been lasting for 40 years.

"So was the feminist movement some kind of cruel hoax? Do women get less desirable as they get more successful?" That's a no-brainer, apparently the answer is yes. Think of how many fabulous single women you know and how many of them are single. Probably most.

I'm not even going to go into the thing about the donut.

But the thing is, what is a girl to do? I guess if there were a definitive answer we wouldn't be in this pickle. But I think the thing to do is to be ourselves. If you like being a girly girl, then be one. If you want to be a stay-at-home mom, then be one. If you want to climb the corporate ladder, then go for it. The bottom line is to be true to yourself and the rest will come. No good comes of trying to shape into a mold of what others thing we should be.

Easier said than done, I know. But let's give it a try. Meanwhile, have your daughters read Maureen's article. It's not too late to save them.