Celebrate Women

Click the picture – 99 cent kindle sale this week

Not going to talk politics, really, but women took a hit this week. Just going to say it. We did.

I grew up in the wake of the women’s movement, but even with the strides of the women who paved the path before me, I’ve taken my hits. I have been told not to worry my little head about it more times than I can count. I’ve sat in board rooms where I was not heard because I had boobs, even though I had the right answers. I once had to pull a friend of mine off a man in a very big corporate board meeting because he referred to her as a “lady architect.” She was a tiger, I probably saved his life.

It got better as I got older and sometimes worse. I found, for the most part, the generations of men who came after were better. The generation of men who came before me, not so much.

That’s one of the reasons I write about women and girls in all my books and stories. Our stories need to be told and understood. Women need to read stories about other women to show they are not alone and to shine the light on a possible road they can take on their journey. And sometimes, we just need a laugh and to feel good about ourselves. That’s ok too.

And girls need to read stories about girls and women to show they can be themselves and do what they want. We need to empower them not to let anything stand in their way on their journey.

Recently I began a women’s fiction series about women in a small town and in a woman-owned retail mall called The Little Shoppes. Cupcakes. etc. on sale this week is the first in the series. Each book features a different woman’s business and individual origin stories, plus the people and town who support them. My editor said she wishes there were more fiction books about women’s friendships and women helping women. I thought she was mistaken as I’ve read a lot of women’s friendship fiction like Firefly Lane, Sweet Magnolias and recently Good Girls Revolt. All were very popular books and became TV movies.

But she’s right, statistically, there are less women’s fiction and specifically women’s friendship fiction books available. I am puzzled. Why?

Either way, I will continue to write strong, but flawed female characters and their stories win, lose or draw because they need to be told and they need to be read.

As my Cupcakes. etc. character Pamela says in her version of Georgia peach southern women’s lib, “Why would I want to be equal to men? I would never lower myself?”

Sorry to the men reading this, but please understand, sometimes we need to feel that way. As an old Virginia Slims commercial used to say…”We’ve come a long way, baby.” But there’s still a long way to go.