Get It, Girls

"The girl and the woman, in their new, individual unfolding, will only in passing be imitators of male behavior and misbehavior and repeaters of male professions. After the uncertainty of such transitions, it will become obvious that women were going through the abundance and variation of those (often ridiculous) disguises just so that they could purify their own essential nature and wash out the deforming influences of the other sex. Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately, more fruitfully, and more confidently, must surely have become riper and more human in their depths than light, easygoing man, who is not pulled down beneath the surface of life by the weight of any bodily fruit and who, arrogant and hasty, undervalues what he thinks he loves. This humanity of woman, carried in her womb through all her suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she has stripped off the conventions of mere femaleness in the transformations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching will be astonished by it. Someday (and even now, especially in the countries of northern Europe, trustworthy signs are already speaking and shining), someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only life and reality: the female human being." Rilke

womenorgnow:

Happy Birthday Rosa Parks. May your courage continue to be an inspiration to all of us.

The Bloggess' Brave Post on Depression

Honest, brave description of a bout with depression. 

And chances are that many of your friends, family and coworkers are dealing with things like this.  Things that are killing them a little inside.  Things that kill people who don’t get help.  Silent, bloody battles that end with secret victors who can’t celebrate without shame.  I hope that this post changes this somehow.  I hope that you feel safe enough to be honest about the things you are the most ashamed of.  I hope you have someone there telling you “It’s okay.  You’re still the same person to me.”

Game-Changing Female Reporters

All the big names, and some others who I’ll start paying attention to now…

Amanpour, Maddow, Sawyer, Couric, Huffington, Steinem, and some of the awesome NPR girls.

This woman is resilient, spunky, smart! The interview and footage of Gabby’s recovery made me cry. The overwhelming feeling of the video is inspiration: to be an amazing woman, to make an amazing marriage like the Giffords have, to be grateful, to be brave.

I have always secretly wanted to stand on a stage and make people laugh. But I was more comfortable avoiding ever having to find out if it was something I could actually do. It’s so much easier to just imagine yourself headlining at The Laugh Factory than to take the first small step towards actually making that happen. And now that I did it and refrained from laying down on the stage and crying in a fetal position, which was what I feared I might do, now I feel like I could do anything. It might sound cliche, but it’s absolutely true. I feel like ten pounds have been lifted off my chest. The only difference between you and the people you admire is that they chose to make those first steps towards their dream. They put themselves out there.

hellogiggles:

SINGLE GIRLS GUIDE 21

by Erin Foster