Women's day!

What does the International Women’s day mean to the today’s woman? Besides attending conferences or a super-fun girls’ night out, we should take a moment to reflect on the choices we have today that the women of yester-years fought hard for. Though most of us now shy away from calling ourselves 'feminist' or a part of ‘Women’s liberation movement”, we must acknowledge that we have been the beneficiaries of those struggles. Of course, we still have a long way to go, but there is no denying that there has been a paradigm shift in the way the world sees us and in the way we define ourselves. That said, it doesn’t diminish us in any manner to celebrate our differences from men – how we are inextricably attached to our families ( read kids) in a way men never are, how truly sensitized we are to our surroundings in a way men can never be and how expert multitaskers we are in way men can never hope to be! :-) Cheers to womanhood!

Today being Women’s day, I read a book on a strong woman named “Swamp Angel” by Anne Issacs and illustrated by Paul O Zelinsky. On August 1^st 1815, a baby girl was born and named Angelica Longrider. She grows up to be the prodigious girl who rescues a wagon train submerged in a swamp. From then on, this fearless adventurer is known as “Swamp Angel”. When a giant ferocious bear (a.k.a Thundering Tarnation) threatens to devour all of the winter’s supplies in the State of Tennessee, a reward is announced for the one who kills the bear. When all the men line up to fight the monster, Swamp Angel signs up too. Impervious to the taunts asking her to “Go home and bake a pie”, she snaps “I’d bake a bear pie”! When the men fail, it is the Swamp Angel who single-handedly wrestles the Thundering Tarnation day and night, and finally dishes out bear cakes, bear steaks and bear muffins, enough to feed the whole State of Tennessee!! Happy Women’s day ladies!!