REVOLUTION

THE REVOLUTION
I am not a girl
When will we ever grow up?
I am 54 years old
I am a WOMAN.

I was at Applebee’s taking lunch with 2 other women. We were all 50 something in age. The young, bored out of his mind, bad postured, still wet behind his multipierced ears, teenaged waiter appeared from thin air. He clutched his order pad with perfectly manicured black nail polished hands glared at the floor with his perfectly smoky, grey-blue eye shadowed orbs and barked “What can I get you girls to drink?”

My cohorts let out girly giggles, one ordered coffee the other ordered a Pepsi. I said nothing. The waiter puffed out a sigh of intolerant impatience which I easily recognized, being the mother of a 15 year old daughter and having groomed a 24 year old likewise through this same teen phase of life.

Another now harder puff of breath, “And you?” He still had not looked up or met any of us eye to eye. Perhaps he just didn’t recognize who was sitting at his table.
“I would…like…you to not call me a girl. What do I have to do…how much more growing up will I have to experience before you call me a woman or a lady?” He looked up finally and I saw that the dark-sided “emo” revolution in him met the same spirit of revolution in me and he apologized. “I’m sorry, mam, what would you have?”

“Ice tea with lemon.” He vanished as quickly as he had arrived.

Silence…silence…and another dose of silence. I saw immediately that I had ruined our “girlie” outing.

“Honestly, what DO I have to do in order to be considered a woman? What size bra do I have to wear? How many children do I have to have nursed? How many sanitary napkins must I have worn? How many soufflé’s, thanksgiving turkeys, casseroles do I have to have cooked? The minute a boy even sees a hair on his face or his armpit or where the sun doesn’t shine, one hair--real or imagined--people, including himself, start calling him ‘A MAN’. When do I--we--get to stop being girls? When do we get to grow up and be women?
“I like being called a girl. It makes me feel young” the oldest of the three of us said with an unconvincing giggle.

“We always call each other girls. Girls call girls--girls” my other friend whined. At 54 I was even younger than her. I was the baby of the group.

I bristled. “That’s why men don’t take us seriously. All of our lives to them we are just little girls, to be taken care of and carted around like trophies. At the board table with all of the big boy manly CEO’s we are just little girls. And when we command womanly attributes in a manly world we are branded ‘bitches’ not women. But a female dog. Or a ’tough cookie’. A dessert mind you, a dessert!!! You spank, chastise, talk down to girls or you come to their rescue, show them off to your other man friends. A man never treats a GIRL as an equal. We need a revolution, a change of thought about ourselves. Domestic violence will never end until we stand up as well as lay down in the bed as women, not girls. I am the revolution, even if I am a revolution of one.”

POOF, the waiter appeared. He immediately placed my tea before me then served the other two. He turned towards me. “What would you--you…ladies like to order?”

Will the real women please stand up?

Hello. I am just now finding this wonderful project of encouragement. (realwomenrealadvice.com/2009/02/20/learning-to-recognize-psychological-abuse) Hey all you shugahs out there--don't fret, I'm living proof that there is hope. You CAN move on!!! You CAN again rely upon yourself, think for yourself, love your self and love for your self. One thing we have to do as women is stop being "girls". When a man gets his first extracurricular hairs, he and the rest of the world around him, call him a MAN. At what point in a "girls" lifedom, does she cease being a girl and cross over into the title of WOMAN? I am 50 plus now, birth and suckled two children, travelled and fed thousands of people in 3rd world countries, written award winning books, have been penned one of America's Top 100 Literary Divas yet I am still addressed as a "girl" How many breasts and what cup size does it take in order to be treasured as a woman? How many souffles, how many lawns do I have to mow and how may months of breast feeding do I have to log before I am recognized as a woman? How many tampons and diapers must I have changed? How many steaks must I have sauteed? I once challenged another 50 something woman when we were out to lunch and a high school lad came to wait on our table and said, "What would you girls like to drink?" I corrected the lad who turned all shades of purple when I asked him what did I need to do to prove to him that I was a woman. He sniggled uncomfortably and took both of our orders of sweet tea. I asked my friend why did she not speak up in her behalf as being a woman. Her response, "I like being called a girl, it makes me feel young." I guess I'm a one woman revolution. Cause I definitely suggest that if we are gonna win the war on domestic violence. I will need all of the girls to stay home...Yolantha