Strong Women

" Just remember, everything Fred Astaire did Ginger Rogers did backwards...and in high heels" ~Faith Wittlesey

Since spring of last year I have become enthralled with concept of strong women and how they manifest themselves in society. It started as a list compiled by myself and the previously mentioned soon-to-be-Turkish-expatriate (how's that for a snazzy title) in response to a rather sad presentation made by our TOK (read: IB-ized philosophy) on the same subjects. We thought his examples (Hilary Clinton, Brune Hilde, Scarlett O’Hara, and a painting of an unnamed dancer by...get this...a male artist) were rather weak so we complied a list (to date:166 women) of better choices. While the list itself was astounding the most interesting part was deciding on criteria:
        
       

( criteria )

But ever since then I have been on the look out for reference to strong women, to see how our criteria holds up to reality. On Saturday I saw a grad student play at UMKC about women in WWII (John Murrell's Waiting for the Parade). The play itself made a caricature of these women's stories but the dramaturgy notes made interesting points about how femininity and strength are not mutually exclusive.

( dramaturgy notes )

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It puts things in a different light to the think that concealer and mascara are armor, rather than simply something to hide behind, especially considering that the pressure to uphold that ideal of feminine beauty (with whatever connotation you think it has) comes as much from each other as it does from men.

I remain,
Georgie

Postscript: This also explains why Queen Elizabeth had an inch of make-up on when she died. If anybody needed armor...
G.S