Being a Lady

[Maricel Evasco]

What does it mean to be a "lady" in today's world?
What is your opinion on the changing perception of being a lady?
Are there still certain brand of etiquette /restrictions/expectations forced upon us by society? (ex. the double standards)

I am glad we can be more open about our sexuality and expressing our intelligence without censure these days. I am also glad we can now compete professionally with men. I'm not so glad the burden of responsibilities have grown as well.

Yet, despite the great strides we have made as females, I can still admire classic ladies like Audrey Hepburn who is to me still the quintessential elegant lady- slender, soft-spoken, fragile looking or Marilyn Monroe, a sex kitten who appeared confident and unafraid to demonstrate her sensuality.

I like how napalmnacey, a blogger, defines being a lady. It resonates well with who I am.
"I am a lady because I have a mind and a heart. I am a lady because I care about the world and the people in it. I have as much dignity, charm and finesse as any self-restrained woman of virtue, I just choose to damn the torpedoes and let my natural personality flow free."

I would like to add that I am blessed to have been born female, distinctly different from the male of our species.

[Maricel Evasco]

Just something to ponder on...

The Paradox of the New Feminism
Feminism in 1910s pursued two interconnected but theoretically antagonistic kinds freedom. New feminists sought the emancipation of woman as a human being and as "sex-being," creature of her special nature. Feminists wanted to have it both ways--to like men and in some respects to be like men, while loyal politically and ideologically to their own sex; and to expand the concept of womanhood while proclaiming the variability of individuals within a sex. Feminism was full of double aims: it joined the concept of women's equality with men to the concept of sexual difference; it joined the aim of individual release of personality with that of concerted social action; it joined the endorsement of what was human to the development of political solidarity among women.

http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/386/newwoman....

[Quilty]

I was thinking about those "double standards" myself recently.

The more I think about them, the more I think WOMEN impose them on other women more than society in general does. It reminds me of a nasty little game my daughters and I would play at the mall. We would take a break from shopping on a bench and watch the Passing Parade, playing "Fashion Police." The "winner" was the one who could spot the tackiest dresser first.

When I think back on the audacity it took to say some of the things we did (only to each other, of course!) I'm grimly amused at what those very women could have said about US.

My idol as a young woman was Jackie Kennedy, and by extension, my parents -- who could have doubled for JFK and Jackie in movies, they both looked so much like them. They went to lots of business cocktail parties and dinners when I was young (Dad was in advertising), so they often dressed up soooo chicly for the evenings!

I still have a great respect for Jackie, especially in the way she chose to raise her children "as normally as possible" when they left Washington. I'm sure a lesser woman would have taken the easy route, and skate by on the Kennedy name. But not Jackie. She made her own life, made sure her children made their own lives, and gave us all hope for a second chance at love when she remarried at 39.

[Dazzling Zoomer Gal Diana]

Queen Guinevere? Who so impolitely cuckolded her husband? I hardly think her a role model Maricel! Her duplicity brought down a kingdom and lead to the death of her husband! /:->

I can think of better role models, who endured well, and with grace. Princess Grace Kelly comes to mind. As does my special hero - Audrey Hepburn - and there are many others. Madam Albright , Prime Minister Golda Meir, Dame Judi Dench , Dame Julie Andrews, I could list so many - the list is formidable.

I'd like to think that the same characteristics that define a woman with manners is the same as those that define a man with manners - to quote Edmund Burke:

"Manners are of more importance than laws... Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. "

It is difficult at times to remember our manners in a frightening, demanding and relentlessly contentious world. But those who strive to do so more often than not, stand ahead and above the crowd. They serve, and do so with grace. This to me is the mark of a gentleman, or a lady, if we are to invoke what I have long suspected to be old fashioned labels that we cling to - for want of better, more current coin of the realm!

[Quilty]

Yes. GRACE and DIGNITY.

Those two words alone define "Lady" to me.