The Lost Art of Being a Lady

   
 


      In our day and time with all of these feminists crying "Anything you can do I can do better!", it's sometimes hard to remember what it's like to stop fighting to be like everyone else and just be the calm, cool, collected lady of grace that we were made to be.
   I watched a movie the other day called Ballet Shoes, it was about three orphan girls who were adopted from all over the world by a man in London and raised by his daughter as he traveled abroad. They lived in England during the 1940's and it showed how they went on in pursuit of their dreams. One wanted to be an actress, one an aviator and one a ballerina. But I realized something after watching it. Those girls, even at the ages of 12 through 16, had an element of grace that I was lacking. And I realized I wanted it.


     Most modern day women and girls look at the image of an old Victorian looking woman in a long flowing dress and think that she was weak and inferior to any and all of her mail companions. But was she in reality?
 
         My mother heard a definition of meekness once that she loves to quote now. " Meekness is power under control." And I believe it's true.
      There is a stereotype of women in the pre-civil rights era who were abused, mistreated and inferior to men young and old. And in reality there were women who were in that position, that's why I think in a way, the civil rights movement ( I'm referring to the part where women won the right to vote and own property and no other part. ) was a very good thing. But it seems that we have taken it too far. We have forgotten what it was like to be a woman who was not mistreated, not abused and not inferior but still wore dresses, took care of the home, raised the children, and was all the while the epitome of grace and elegance.


    Today our stereo types and role models of what a women should be are very different than what they used to be. We use the words "sexy", "alluring" and "irresistible" to define the "best" qualities a woman could have. Instead of  "graceful", "self-controlled" and "diligent".


   In the next few posts I'll go through a few things we as women have forgotten, myself included. And bring to light the lost art of being a lady.