Lady and the tramp

"Don't chew with your mouth open, Naomi. Eat like a lady."

"Naomi, stop slouching. Stand up straight like a lady."

"Naomi! Don't say that word! It's not very ladylike."

"It's a toot, Naomi. Ladies don't fart."


"Lady" has always been the precedent by which we were to live. Growing up, she was the standard. Elusive and impossible. Destroyer of all my fun.
I always wondered who she was and why the hell I had to be like her.
She was a constant threat to my comfort and amusement.

Sitting at the dinner table, one leg propped up in my chair and forking in mouthfuls of food while hiding behind my knee and looking like "some sort of caveman" according to my dad, was so much more appealing to me than sitting straight as a board with a napkin in my lap, taking in the tiniest of bites.
As I got older, I was also informed that ladies wore bras, shaved their legs, waxed their eyebrows, and put on makeup.
I fought it.
The image of a lady that I had conjured in my brain over time was that of this stuffy, mid-century woman in a tight corset which constricted her breathing, her hair elaborately pinned in an enormous fluffy pile precariously perched on top of her head. If she so much as blinked too fast, it would topple. She is sitting, still and quietly, in a dimly lit room as someone reads to her from an intimidatingly large, leather-bound text book that no one truly comprehends. She is the picture of discomfort, boredom, and confinement.
In my mind, being a lady meant never doing the things I wanted to do. It meant never having fun, never saying what I was really thinking. It meant an entire lifetime of never measuring up and never experiencing life to its fullest.

When I was in college, I met a girl who never shaved her legs. She didn't wear makeup. She didn't allow men to hold the door open for her.
"I got it," she'd say. "I'm quite capable of opening the door myself."
My college was a work-study school. All students worked a part-time job at the school, which was its own self-sufficient city within itself, in order to pay their tuition costs. I met this girl, Anastasia, one summer when we were both assigned to the landscaping crew.
What I remember most about Anastasia is all the unnecessary work she was always creating for herself in order to prove a point.
She would heft large, heavy hoses and haul them further than needed, groaning under their strain and complaining of pulled muscles. She would continue to work in the midst of torrential downpours and warnings of severe lightning. She tried to get on the mow crew even though they only allowed males to push mow the grassy hills surrounding the school.
She was always the dirtiest amongst us.

She called herself a feminist.

She would scoff at the rest of us girls who continued to shave our legs, fix our hair in the morning, and allow the boys to pull our hoses for us.

And I thought to myself, maybe I don't want to be a feminist, after all. It apparently means creating more work for myself and being dirty and sore all the time.
So I was caught in the middle. I wanted neither to be a lady nor a feminist.

Now enter the adult world, the dating world.
My views began to sharpen and take shape as I stepped into this new and frightening realm and I realized two important things.
First, being a lady is not the equivalent of living a dull, confining life. A lady is a poised and refined woman who is treated with respect because of her intelligence, aptitude, and strength of character. As a matter of fact, she is the opposite of boring. She is educated, experienced, and polished.
Second, being a feminist does not mean being dirty, crude, or above asking for help. The definition of a feminist is someone advocating political, economic, and social equality for women. Sometimes people, such as Anastasia, take this definition to the extreme and this causes them to look stupid and unhygienic and to create more work than is necessary.

So I am both. I am all about some equality for women, but at the same time I don't think that the fact that I shave my legs, wax my eyebrows, wear makeup, and ask for help (turns out Mom was completely in the right for making me do those things- my junior high pictures are horrifying) make me any less of a feminist. I believe that we should have just as many opportunities as guys and that we should be able to accept those opportunities while wearing lipstick (guys groom and primp themselves just like we girls do).
I also don't think allowing a guy to hold the door open for me makes me any less of a feminist. In fact, I think it is a beautiful display of respect, humbleness, and power. The guy is humbling himself by acknowledging and respecting your power and position as a woman. I see nothing un-feminist about that picture.
To me, being a feminist and a lady have become one in the same. It means pursuing academic goals, it means living a healthy lifestyle, it means taking care of myself physically, mentally, and spiritually. It means knowing what I want and going for it. It means knowing when to speak and when to listen. It means respecting others. It means standing up for myself. It means using my words effectively, thinking through decisions, being precise. It means trying new things, seeking adventure. But mostly it means having respect for myself and allowing that to define me and how I'm viewed and treated by other people.