Freedom to be What I want to be

In today's San Jose Mercury, Patty Fisher commented about women's cheerleading wanting to be considered a sport, which would allow it to have all the perqs other sports get. She made the comment that feminists would not appreciate having this as a sport.

It reminded me of one of my gripes about militant feminism going too far. If you recall, words with female endings "ette" or actress (instead of actor), etc., were all banned from usage. Typically female activiites such as sewing and cooking were frowned upon by the more militant feminists. Instead of elevating women - in my opinion to not only demeaned them, but forced them to live a half life - to become androgynous whether they wanted to or not.

Of course similar cuts were made to men as well - anything overtly masculine - such as strength and aggression were seen as boorish and rude. Why was androgyny to be the only model left to us?

I would like to see us create a culture in which the freedom to be whereever on the contimuum between typically feminine and typically masculine is honored. This allows for "girly-girls" as well as "manly-men" and everything in between. It allows for those women who want to be seen as more "butch" to do so, and for those men wanting to be "metro-sexual" to feel comfortable as such.

For me: I like being a strong, competent, independent feminine woman, who loves to cook, wear makeup, dress up and be all that I want to be.