The older I get, the more comfortable I am in my own skin.  For the first time I look in the mirror and I like what I see.  I’m finally loving my curves and big hips. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my moments – there is the beer belly and love handles after all, which I battle a love / hate relationship with.

Embracing Me and My Curves (Photgrapher: Lola May)

I love that as a woman I have this body that is designed for baring and nurturing life. How cool is that?  That is a miracle that men do not get to share. Even if the actual act of childbirth (and possibly breast feeding) scare the bejesus out of me.

I love that as women we are welcome to share our feeling and emotions, with minimal judgment.  Hell, half the time I think we are encouraged to do so.  Mostly, I love that we can hug and kiss – both men and women – in our life’s, and mostly are not judged for it.

Kissing an Absolutely Delightful Woman

What I am not proud of in women is the underhanded, vindictiveness that we treat each other.  I’d say cattiness, but I love my cat and I do not love women that behave in such a manner.  They’ll kiss you to your face and grab a knife to stab you behind your back.  Why?  Competition, jealousy, a man.  What I most love is when this is over a man that isn’t even theirs or one that you are personally are interested in no more than a friendship with and they are just jealous cause your close with them.  Because … Hello People … men and women can just be friends with no alterior motives.  Just look at my life – most of the men in it are just good buddies, that I love as friends.

Women – we should be supporting one another, not tripping each other in an attempt to get what we want.  That just makes you look ugly.  Something to remember and think about as International Women’s Day comes and goes.

And on that note, an enormous thank you to the many incredible women in my life, that help build me up everyday.  I love you!!!

And then I go pant shopping.

That was yesterday for me. And somewhat of a disaster on the whole ‘positive body image campaign’. Yes, at the age 35, I may have had a temper tantrum or two in the store and I may have been on the brink of tears.  My companions, sillily suggested mall stores at one point, that quickly spiraled the experience out of control.  Why our main fashion outlets, like Esprit, Banana Republic …etc, can’t make clothes for a gal with curves and hips is beyond me.  I have a small waist and big hips and can’t for the life of me find flattering pants that fit correctly in such stores. And I know my figure is not abnormal.

My body (Photographer: Lola May)

At the end of the day, I ended up in a store carrying expensive European fashions and I found some pants that made me feel exquisite and are exceptionally flattering to my figure.  Will I still need to battle the trauma of the other stores and feeling fat?  Yep, and this is likely why I avoid pant shopping until my clothes start looking tatty. But I was lucky, I had someone that wanted to splurge a little on me and buy me the pants that made me feel exquisite. Not everybody is as lucky.  Not everybody can afford to shop in the fancy stores, and then I think about the teenagers.  The shops in the malls are designed with the teenage shopper in mind.  What does it do to the impressionable teen, whose body is changing drastically, when all the clothes in the trendy stores in the mall are designed for women without curves?  Should these stores not have something for all shapes and sizes as opposed to hipless women?

At what point is the mainstream fashion industry going to join campaigns, like that of Dove’s, and celebrate real women’s bodies and help women to feel like the sexy devils they are? Fashion should make us feel good about ourselves, not horribly insecure.

Pole dancing is great aerobic exercise and does NOT mean your learning to be a stripper.  If your mature enough, aerobic pole dance is a great workout, liberating and empowering.  It makes every woman feel like the sexy devil she should, no matter her age, shape or size.  And I for one think that’s fantastic.

Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn’t be spending less time criticizing others choices, but rather taking a good hard look at ourselves.  And this is definitely one area that thats the case. When I’m in my coaching sessions, Jennifer doesn’t fixate on how I can change and criticize the people around me, but rather on self exploration. If you equate every gal that pole dances with a stripper, then I query your worldly views on women. If you equate all pole dancing with stripping then I question if this is not how you look at women.

I for one do pole dance for exercise and for fun.  Does that make me a stripper?  Absolutely not.  I am an educated woman and I know many other educated women that also enjoy pole dancing.

To be honest, its exhilarating.  It takes part of me back to the monkey bars in the playground and the other part of me it helps to remind me of what beautiful and sexy creatures we women are.  Very empowering!

Am I embarrassed to have taken aerobic pole dancing classes?  Absolutely not.  My parents know.  They think its funny.  I’ve even shown them a few dance moves and my Mom wrote about it in the family Christmas Card. And I can tell you I come from a highly educated family, where manners are paramount, so don’t even suggest its in poor taste.

So in future, before criticizing, might I suggest that you try what your passing judgment on first (unless of course, it’s illegal).

Emme

I’ve been a little remiss in mentioning that a few of my favourite Digirati Darlings in town are at it again and busy presenting at Chicks Who Click this coming Saturday!  I am happy to  say though that it is not too late to register and come out to absorb, share ideas, and meet some other creatively inspired Van City gals.

Here are the details:

Friday, June 26, 2009

2:30-4:30
101 Track-”We are Living in a Digital World and I’m Just an Analog Girl”-Doyle Albee

5:00 p.m.
Chicks who Mix: Tweet-up at the Alibi Room

Saturday, June 27, 2009

8:00-8:30
Breakfast and Networking 8:30-9:30
Via Livecast from Seattle-Monica Guzman, from the Seattle Post Intelligencer

9:45-10:45
“Twitter: Tweeting, Following & Finding” -Monica Hamburg

11:00-12:00
“Breaking the Glass Ceiling-Women in Tech Start-ups”-Megan Cole, Victoria Revay, Alexandra Samuel, moderated by Boris Mann

12:15-1:15
Lunch
Carrie McCarthy-Marketing your image-online and off.

1:30-2:30
“Connecting Communities-Traditional Media and New Media”-Erica Hargreave

3:45-5:00
“Privacy vs Transparency-Where do you draw the line?”- Gillian Shaw, Rebecca Bolwitt, Erica Hargreave, Moderated by Doyle Albee 5:30-?
Chicks who Mix Cocktail Party and Networking

In case you haven’t heard of Ada Lovelace Day, it is a day in which we celebrate the sexy and savvy women of tech. One of the ways in which we do this is by celebrating these women on our blogs.

Why Ada Lovelace?  Well, because Augustus Ada King, the Countess of Lovelace, was the ‘first programmer’, not ‘female programmer’, but programmer period.  And she acquired this title in the mid 1800s.  Pretty gosh darn amazing!  And she was doing this programming for a machine not even yet built – the analytical engine – Charles Babbage’s early mechanical general-purpose computer.

Today, the woman I want to celebrate is Megan Cole.  I want to celebrate Megan as she was one of my initial teachers of social media (yes, shes the one to blame) and she did this so seamlessly that I didn’t even realize that I was learning or was being taught anything, for that matter.  Thank you Megan for opening my eyes to this crazy, mixed-up world of interactivity!  Your a gifted teacher!