Always a woman

A very long time ago, a friend of mine sang the Billy Joel classic She's always a woman to me for me. It said everything I always believed a woman was all about, from her sense of humour to her tantrums, her whimsies and her madness. And somewhere along the way, I saw a lot of it in me, taken with a rather oversized pinch of salt, of course, since it was, after all, just a song.

Today, at the gym, I saw those same qualities in a lot of women who were sweating their way through exercise routines. They were of various sizes and shapes, in form and out of it, happy about themselves and obviously not. But they all seemed to know - as all women instinctively do - that they had a special power. They were strong and resilient and determined, some of the best qualities in any human being. And, considering the way so many men in this country treat women, it seems that these same qualities are so necessary for survival of any woman today.

A friend of mine, a woman of my mother's generation, always told me to use my femininity as an additional qualification to get whatever I needed to do, done. Another friend, a little younger, once told me that it was a matter of pride to be a 'babe', however pejorative it may sound when used by the average male human. And I find that there is a way in which a feminine voice, a smile, a sweep of a set of nicely mascaraed eyelashes, gets the job done faster, better and easier than if I was a macho type who marched in and demanded whatever it is.

Is that some strange form of sexism, chauvinism, selling of the self, all that is nasty and negative about using your gender to smooth the path? Not at all. Not in my mind, at least. After all, today it is all about war and occasionally about love, especially in a professional situation. And, as they say, all's fair...isn't it?