Cairo, the 26th October, 2010

The infamous bitch -bad girl -in the history of the world

Powerful women have always paied a high price for being who they are.

If a man is ambitious and he goes for the stuff he wants using all his resources, he's considered smart, strong willed and brave. If a woman does the same, she's considered a BITCH (even by other women).

I admire that POWER that someone uses over her/himself and not over others. I guess that's the real power in this messy world.

It's despising - in my opinion - that cold ambition which uses any means to reach a goal but how odd it seems that men are not as charged as women for that same mistake?

Living in a world of submissive women (Africa and Middle East) who use their power and manipulative power in an indirect, under the table way, I would like to see more of these WOMEN use their REAL POWER to live their lives in a truthful, fearless way.

I dream of the day the stereotype of the bitch is not associated with an ambitious, assertive, strong woman (what's wrong about that, for God's sake?) but with what really is: a person (woman or man) with no principles or ethics.

Would love to see more and more women ( and men!) dreaming BIG and daring to be strong without stepping on one another, saying what they think and desire not fearing of being called ambitious bitches.

Here's a piece of an interview the author Stacy Schiff gave to Oprah Magazine (on the release of her new book CLEOPATRA, A LIFE):

O' Magazine: Considering how much power Cleopatra wielded, why is that women were (and still are) often condemned as manipulators while men are praised as strategists for similar behaviour?

Stacy Schiff:

The answer is simple: for thousands of years, men have written history, so it seems to me that most of what we read is from the male point of view. Throughout most of history (when men were writing), women were meant to be the obedient, agreeable supporting players. They were not meant to have minds of their own. When they strayed from that image, they paid a price.

They were considered unnatural: A woman schemes while a man strategizes; men command while women manipulate.

We see this every day at the office. Powerful women in history have generally been reduced to (this is from Henry James, believe it or not) wicked queens (and) profligate mistresses.

James forgot one stereotype, though: the sexual predator.

From Delilah to Catherine The Great , the best way to cast aspersions on a woman in charge was to assign her a prodigious sexual appetite. A woman who asserts herself unnerves. She is the bad girl; she gets demonized for ther promiscuity. (...)

There doesn't yet seem to be a language , even a prototype, for the capable, cool-headed woman, though I do think we're on our way to creating one. Or, at least, we're closer than we've been - possibly because women have pens now, too.