The Modern Day "Liberated Woman"

The other day I had the pleasure of running into an old friend.  We spent some time catching up and I was happy to spend some time hearing about what she has been up to.  Today I receive an email from her entitled "I had to get this off my chest."  Apparently, according to the email, my willingness to cook, clean, craft, and care take for my loved ones is an affront to the entire female gender.  Many unwarranted and vicious statements were made, including her claim that  I am "single handily undoing the struggles of the women who came before us which enabled our generation to be liberated women."  While my original inclination was to ignore the email all together, after thinking about it I could not let this go.  The email did not make me feel insecure in the life I live, but I can't help but to wonder how many other women and young girls feel they have to live their life as either the career woman or the housewife? How many feel that if they are not filling a single role that they are failing their gender? When did these two worlds become mutually exclusive?!?!

I am a woman in my mid twenties, living in New York City.  I am an educated young woman and am proud to have obtained my Bachelors degree,  Masters degree as well as a number of other certificates.  I am a certified New York State Emergency Medical Technician.  I work in the predominantly male field of security and supervise an operations staff.  I have started and continue to grow my own small business. I like sports, the outdoors, reading, and traveling.  So yes I can say that I am a  modern woman.  I am proud to know that the struggles my mother, grandmothers, and the women who came before them have made it possible for me to hold the success I do today.  Their struggles though mean more to me than the ability to do things that in the recent past were limited to the male gender.

To me the Modern Day Liberated Woman is so much more.  The women who fought for our rights, our equality, our dreams were not trying to force us into the cookie cutter shape of what was previously the "man's world."  They sacrificed and aimed to LIBERATE us! To allow us the freedom to choose our own dreams and pursue them.  Who are we to look down on the lives they lived?  When did caring for those we love, cooking, and cleaning become an insult to women.  I CHOOSE to hold to tradition while living out my dreams.  What better way to honor these women than to become strong role models to the next generation and what better way to develop our strength than by understanding where we came from and expanding our horizons.  Even the tallest and farthest reaching tree needs its roots to allow it to stand tall.

I am happy and secure in my identity as both a career women and a tradition based home/care taker.  Handcrafted Holidays, my craft company, is a perfect example of how our liberation allows me to combine the previous male world of business with the feminine traditions my grandmothers' embraced, like crochet.  While every woman must find her own path, and follow her own dreams I think it is appalling that one woman should attack another for not being exclusively career "liberated."  Instead of picking "sides" I choose instead to embrace the woman's choice; the choice to work or to be a stay at home mom, to craft or to play sports, and perhaps even more to the pride of our fore-mother's, the choice to be whatever wonderful combination of these roles our Modern Day Liberated selves choose to be.