You say SEXIST..I say GRATEFUL

Someone once told me that I seem to be sexist. I admit that I am pro women but I don't think I'm sexist. I do not think women are better than men and I don't think that women can survive without men. Men and women are different like how God intended us to be and we keep the world balanced. However I am pro women because I am proud of my race and I am grateful for the women before me who fought for women's rights. Those women fought for us...girls today.

It was a movie that I watched when I was six years old or so that made me realize that girls did not have it easy back in the day. The movie was 'A League of Their Own'...and I have watched it over and over throughout the years growing up. The movie stared Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna and many more. It was set in the 1940's I guess where the baseball league was shut down because men were off to war. So in order to revive the game again a company comes up with an idea to start a professional women's baseball league. This movie features how these group of women strive to work hard and to be considered as good as men. As a little girl watching this, I thought to myself...wow...girls couldn't play sports those days. I guess you could say it was a light bulb moment for me. It was when I realise girls couldn't do simple things like playing baseball....let alone work in the cooperate world.

I remember my mother telling me stories from the 70s when women use to burn their bras as a sign for women liberation. I found those stories so fascinating and i remember how I wished I was alive to see that. As I was growing up I learnt more and more about how women had to fight to be equal as men. Women were not given the right to a proper education and they couldn't vote. Women were just meant to be a wife and a mother...nothing else. As long you could cook a meal, do the laundry, look after children and make love to your husband...you are a complete women. Now as a 24 year old I cannot imagine my life being confined to such few aspects. If I was a 24 year old in the 1950's I would be married with two kids and one on the way. It's so hard for me to imagine that because I can't cook a meal to save my life let alone take care of a FAMILY!

Another movie I love is Mona Lisa Smile starring the great Julia Roberts. I watched this movie a few years ago and my favourite scene is when Julia Roberts presents a slide show to her class about an advertisement about girdles. If I'm not mistaken it said 'It will set you free'. Julia Roberts with full of rage asked what does this mean? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? It's true...how can a girdle set you free? Is being pretty the only purpose in life?? One by one we see the girls were off busy getting married. As a university student myself, I couldn't imagine getting married in the MIDDLE of semester. We can see that these girls were brought up to believe that their purpose in life were to groom themselves and get married and live happily ever after just like in the fairy tales. It was interesting to see the characters develop as women and some of them took the road less traveled to pursue their career. That path is common in today's world. I guess back then it was all keeping up appearances. Be pretty, be a good wife, be a good mother. Of course that is not wrong but be a good doctor, lawyer, scientist could be added to that as well. I remember Kirsten Dunst's character talking to her mother about Mona Lisa's smile saying that she was not happy. Maybe she was just keeping up appearances too. We'll never know.

I'm sure everybody have heard the names Watson and Crick. They were the ones who elucidated the double helical DNA structure. But has anyone heard about Rosalind Franklin? She is best known for her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA which led to discovery of DNA double helix. Her data, according to Francis Crick, was "the data we actually used" to formulate Crick and Watson's 1953 hypothesis regarding the structure of DNA. But was she given a nobel prize? Nope....because back then even the nobel prize committee were gender bias. She didn't get due recognition because she was a W-O-M-A-N! 

I'm not a sexist I'm just grateful for these great women before me who have paved the way for me to the right of education, voting and career. After knowing the history of women's rights...how can I not be pro women. As young women today we should respect the greats before us by practicing our rights. It sickens me to see young girls dumb their selves down just to attract a boy. It is disrespecting those women who fought so hard for us. Paris Hilton is not HOT...Rosalind Franklin and Madame Curie are HOT. I'm grateful that there existed such visionary women throughout history. We can be mothers, wives and career women. I am woman hear me ROAR!