The woman stands in front of the full length mirror examining herself as she gets ready for the meeting. As she looks at her reflection, holding up two different dresses, she frowns. I might be an entrepeneur, but I'm also a woman. Putting up the standard business dress she wears to business meetings, she chooses the handmade polka dotted dress that is standard for every housewife of the 1950's. As she dones the dress she made, she reconfirms, I am a woman.
Getting out of her car with her perfect cheesecake and delicious turkey hors d'oeuvre speciality, she straightens her dress and walks toward the company picnic with her head held high. No one even turns her way. One of her colleagues from a different department asks, "Are you here with your husband?"
Stunned, the woman turns slightly red, but not from embarassment. Anger. She realises that no one here has ever seen her out of business attire. This is a business outting, but not a business meeting, so she wanted to look like herself. What is this man talking about? I'm not even married.
As if on cue, her secretary runs up to help carry things, "Ms. Conyers, you look stunning in that dress. Where did you buy it? I didn't think they made dresses like that anymore." Ms. Conyers turns and hands her secretary a plate full of her turkey treats, "I made it on my own, not bought it. I'm glad you like it. It it quite simple to make."
With a practised look of any CEO, she dismisses the man that took her for just another housewife. For the rest of the picnic, she was asked constantly by her colleagues about her sewing skills and when she started. It was as if they had never considered her to be anything other than a ruthless business woman. Everyone reinvents themselves, she thought. But, this is how I've been my entire life. I sew, I cook, I bake and I clean. I am a business owner, a CEO and a woman. Most of all, I am a woman.
This is a beautiful story. I feel like I can relate to it in a backwards way. I get dismissed as a housewife/ stay-at-home- mom, as if that is something bad, and people are always shocked to find out what else I can do and have done.
Thank you for posting this. I hope people will read this and learn to not make snap judgments and thoughtless words.
~T
A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins. ~Benjamin Franklin
Although this is partly fictional, it is partly not. I have been judged for being any of my various aspects that one gets to know. I am a lot of things to a lot of people. No one really sees the full spectrum of what I am.
I assume it is true for a lot of people. It is a feeling I never liked when I'd look at someone and see something. I am compelled to find out the full story. I hope the rest of the world will see that what you see on first glance is not necessarily the full story.
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You can't ignore me, for I'll not lie down quietly.
http://insanitek.net
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