The Importance of Girlfriends

I attended a self-esteem workshop for women last night, not as a participant, but as an observer because I had numerous clients attending and I wanted to see what it was all about. I was amazed.

First of all, I was pleased to see that it was not a feminist-driven workshop. It really did focus on your own "shit" and that it was up to you to turn it around. Secondly, it was so empowering giving the participants the tools necessary to start changing how they view themselves. It's not up to anyone else; you have to work at it and figure out what works for you.

One of the primary focuses was about how women loose their voices because of family and societal expectations placed on us... we can't be loud because we are supposed to speak softly; if we are aggressive we are bitches; if we are athletic we must be dikes; we are supposed to want to be mothers and wives and if we don’t, well, we just don’t fit in now do we?

If we don't fit into these expectations and choose to live outside the female box, we are often times ostracized and have difficulty finding our niche. One of the biggest challenges we face as women is staying true to ourselves especially when we are in a relationship. That is where even the strongest of women tend to give up pieces of who they are because that's what we are supposed to do.

Think back to elementary school...it was fairly egalitarian. Now think about junior high...this is where we started to shift our focus away from our girlfriends onto the boys. It became a competitive world out there with our sisters. We wanted the boys! And that girl wearing those tight jeans was no longer our friend but our competition. Slut!

See how easy it is to start being petty rather than sisterly? Thank goodness that I am in a time in my life where I truly value the friendship and support of my sisters. I don't feel the need to compete anymore, so now I can focus on how important those relationships with women really are to me.

Did you know that having a good support system in place is one of the top factors contributing to mental well-being? Let go of the competitions and return to a place that’s warm, kind and supportive. Take time to join a women’s group, whether it’s a soft-ball team, a knitting group or a book club. Go out there and find out what you can get from being connected to other women.

Don’t go ditching your men though! They play just as important of a role in our lives. This is just a gentle reminder to stay connected to your girl posse!

The Power of Gender Stereotypes

Yesterday in my Gender class we discussed gender stereotypes. Most people really don't realize the power behind gender stereotypes or stereotypes of any kind. It's a pretty interesting topic; as a society we really have come a long way, but we still have so far to go.

Even though we have updated our home economic textbooks from the 50’s, women in a number of foreign countries have no rights. Have you ever seen one of those textbooks? It instructs our girls to do things like the following:

- greet your husband at the door after a long day at work looking fresh, with newly applied makeup and high heels on
- to bring him his slippers to help him relax
- to have dinner waiting
- to let him talk about his day because his was stressful
- to not share the bad things that happened in your day because it would add to his stress

These are just a few examples of what you could expect to find back “in the day!” We are improving, but so much more needs to be done especially in certain parts of our world.

One of the women I am currently working with…a victim of domestic abuse who is now a single mom…did not want to return to her home country because she would have to sit around her parents’ home waiting for a new husband to come along…literally.

One of the reasons we have stereotypes is the way that we process information. In order to make sense of our world we need to break things down into reasonable bits. That's where stereotypes come in handy. They get us into trouble, however, when we use them to perpetuate negative beliefs about a certain group of people.

The cool thing is that as human beings, we also have the ability to step back and re-evauate those stereotypes. For example, there is still the gender stereotype out there that women can’t be good physicists. Another interesting caveat to throw in here is that people tend to live up to expectations.

So…if you tell your daughter that she could never become a physicist because she is a girl…basing the comment on her sex…then she probably won’t even consider the profession. That is an incredibly powerful belief... When in reality she might win the next Nobel Laureate in Physics! Encourage all the possibilities! Encouragement is just as powerful.

The next time you catch yourself judging someone based on a stereotype, stop yourself; take a moment to consider the situation or the person as a whole. It’s dangerous to judge a person solely by his or her appearance.

Food for thought…How do YOU want to be judged?

What Makes a Man Want to Have More Sex

Our society focuses on the opposite of this issue, that men always want sex, choosing to ignore that it really does go both ways. There's that misconception that men have higher sex drives than women do when in fact they are pretty much the same.

The difference comes in how each gender approaches sex. Most men have been raised to believe that showing emotion is unacceptable. So...sex is the best way that they know how to accomplish that feat while still looking like a guy!

Men are also motivated by being able to show off some ability while women are more motivated through feeling appreciated and loved.

Gentlemen...I want to know what works for you...what turns you on when you are off. What makes you want to have more sex?!?!

Question for the Guys

So...my last article was titled "How Do I Get My Wife/Girlfriend to Have More Sex?' That article has prompted another question...how do I get my husband/boyfriend to have more sex?

As it turns out, there are a lot of women out there who have this challenge with their men. Now, I know that many or all of you are saying, "Oh, no...Not me!" However, consider for me the possibility that your wife/girlfriend wants sex when you don't. I would love to hear your side and have you tell me what has worked for you when you weren't necessarily in the mood.

The ladies number one response was having their man do the housework. I seriously doubt that will be your response!

Help me out here guys!

Domestic Violence as Hate Crime?

This past Saturday I attended a conference at a local College of Law exploring whether or not domestic violence should be prosecuted as a hate crime. Most of the attendees were law students and lawyers and only one other social-worker "type". I felt we were able to bring a different perspective to how they were looking at current laws in the state of Colorado and how to potentially word new bills.

Coming from California, I had no idea about criminalized domestic violence. I learned about that working with some of my single-parent participants when I accompanied them to their civil and criminal cases as witnesses. They were witnesses against their ex-husbands and ex-boyfriends; they were not there on the prosecuting side because of our laws. A lot of discussion on this topic on Saturday revolved around how the criminalization caused more problems than it helped.

The original intention was to make the penalties for domestic violence more stringent and to ensure that the perpetrators did not get away with the abuse if a woman did not prosecute. The problems that came about included the not so obvious side effects of taking away the power from the women to make any decision about the person who brought on harm. This often times leaves a woman feeling helpless and frustrated more than they feel helped.

And then there are stories of the ugly underside of the police; the stories include threats against women who did not want to testify. They had many examples of women being threatened; one included having marijuana planted in her house and she was told that the only way to make that "go away" was to testify.

The main topic, however, was on how to add gender to the hate-crime bill. So that if a man beats up a woman and the prosecutors can tie in the reason for the crime having to do with the fact she was a woman, the penalties will be greater. We spent a lot of time "trying" to write verbiage for a potential bill and it was not easy! We spent much time discussing how this could help victims, but also being very careful about how the bill would be worded to avoid potentially hurting them more.

The ultimate goal of this conference was to raise not only awareness, but also as inspiration to everyone to get out there and do something. There is much that we can do to make a difference and to be heard. And it was inspiring!

Moral Obligation?

Yesterday in my Gender class, a student asked me whether I thought that a transgendered person has a moral obligation to disclose that he or she has had sexual reassignment surgery. Wow! What a question!

This sparked much debate in the classroom to say the very least! The person that asked the question thought it would be terrible to find out after falling in love that his girlfriend used to be a man. His biggest issue with all of it was to find out that the person he thought of as a woman, was incapable of bearing children. Then the issue came up about general male expectations and stereotypes…that most men would be freaked out to find out their girlfriend used to be a male.

Most women would too, but women tend to be more gender flexible.

Do you remember the movies “Crying Game” and “Boys Don’t Cry”? Well, it didn’t go over too well when each of the main characters came out or were found out. People don’t like to be deceived especially on that level. And a lot of men really have trouble with issues surrounding masculinity.

It also seems to be a difficult concept to grasp; one’s mind not agreeing with what they see when they look down. How can that happen? Can’t therapy help? They are just confused. Well…research shows that therapy can’t help and that it may happen during a hormone release in fetal development. They aren’t just confused.

How do we help these folks? Be supportive and even if we don’t understand, be tolerant. We would want the same if we were facing some confusing personal issues.

The class agreed as a whole, that yes, there is a moral obligation to disclose that

kind of information. The class, however, could not agree as to what point one should disclose that information…other than not on the first date!

The Power of Women's Groups

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.