Girl power damn it!

Hello lovelies! 

It´s Friday again, and I´m down with a cold again. I have no idea how this is possible...it seems that my Autumn has been filled with cough, snot and headaches. But I´m not here to complain, no Siree! Well, not about the flue anyway. 

When I was in California on my honeymoon (it´s a while ago for sure!) I found a great bumper sticker that I´ve been proudly flagging on my little VW: "Well-behaved women rarely make history". It´s been somewhat of a mantra for me because it´s so true: niceness in all honor but I would have missed so many fantastic things had I always behaved as people expected of me. Women are still expected to "behave" in certain ways -trust me I know how deep those norms about "nice girls" live: I teach teenagers and get a dose of gender preconception every day. And yes yes: boys get that too. But this time I want to write about the girls.

Finland is one of the most gender equal countries in the world. This does not mean that it would be paradise. Sometimes I hear people say stuff like "Oh but women are treated so equally here in comparison to other countries, you really shouldn´t complain". Well I´m very sorry but until both sexes and all in between have exactly the same rights and equal paychecks there´s work to be done. And the prejudges live on. Proof follows:

Have you heard of ski-jumping? It´s a funny looking sport where a person jumps down from a high tower while attached to a pair of skies. Sounds weird,right? It´s very popular in Scandinavian countries and mid-Europe I guess... Some Japanese jumpers I´ve heard of but as you guessed I´m not a big fan. So why on earth do I take up ski-jumping in a burlesque blog?! Besides from being pretty camp it´s a sport that has -at least in Finland- been very male-dominated until lately. Then The International Ski Federation Council decided that one of the competitions should be carried out as a mixed competition. With girls AND boys! This didn´t sit well with the Finnish coach Matti Pulli who now openly moans about how it´s not a "feminine" sport and that girls really should not attend since "After all, we are talking about the World Championships here”. You can read the whole ugly ordeal here: Helsingin Sanomat International edition

Okay. Let me get this straight. Since it´s a big competition women should stay home and not come mess up the boys hard work?!?!?!? 

Let me remind you: this is said by a dude living in the TOP 3rd gender equal countries of the world: Huffington Post: Top Countries for Gender Equality 

It leaves me speechless. Women have been put "into their places" and forbidden from taking part in politics, social life, religion...you name it and very often it´s been with some lame-ass cockadoodle about what is perceived as "feminine" or that the uterus might get hurt or Goddess knows what else. Same reason but reversed is why teenage boys are afraid of hugging each other: because it´s perceived as not-masculine aka feminine aka "gay".  It drives me MAD. This stereotypical labeling of people just because you happen to be born with *something* between your legs!!!! Wake up people! A lot of us don´t feel we want to be defined by our bodies only! Some of us don´t even feel like we have or want to have "a gender". Maybe I have more than one. My darling says to me sometimes I should stop scratching my balls.

I love to play around with my feminine side. My big dream is to grow up to be a Faux Queen.

 I don´t have a problem with having boobs, I just have a problem when I´m banned from doing stuff because I have them. 

 So I will leave you with some of my idols: Mitzi, Felicia and Bernadette who prove crystal clear that Simone de Beauvoir was right: One is not born a woman, one becomes one.

P.S I know, I know...who gets to define "feminine" and "masculine", how we perceive it, what is sex/gender anyway, cultural differences and so on. I know, ok? I just needed to get this out of my system :)