Squishy Seventeen

I'm not a teenage girl anymore. There. I've said it. And even though it's true, I'm not seventeen, I still find myself reliving high school drama when I watch Lindsay Lohan take on The Plastics in Mean Girls. I wasn't a Plastic. The truth is, I hardly qualified for any particular group, as I recall. I can remember the feelings of loneliness, anger, frustration, shame, embarrassment, jealousy and crush (is that a verb?). Fast forward more than ten years later, and those emotions take on a different persona. Reliving them from a seventeen-year-old perspective is confusing and ... squishy. I find myself identifying with the parents, even though they only appear in a couple scenes. What would I do as a parent? Now, that's something that never crossed my mind as a teenager.

Introduction to Me and Wonder Woman

My interest in Wonder Woman began early on in my life. I have a picture of my dad holding me up in the sky, flying with my "underwoman" bikini and beads around my neck. Back then, though, Wonder Woman didn't fly on her own, she flew around in an invisible Jet. A lot has changed about Wonder Woman in the past 60 years. A lot has changed for women in America over the past 60 years. Yet, Wonder Woman remains an icon for women and an inspiration to little girls. And ... why not have an ideal? Someone who holds a standard of truth and strength, while retaining a feminine disposition.

I think it's appropriate to launch this blog on the week of Mother's Day, 2007, which really doesn't end until my flowers die. I am a mother of two toddlers, a professional writer and editor, with a Master's Degree in progress. My Wonder Woman coffee mug sits in front of me most mornings, reminding me that it's okay to step up and take on the challenges of my day. American women face the complexities of life from the time we are young. Roles and obligations are placed in front of us. Often, the thing we want the most, dangles just out of reach. I watch my determined one year old daughter go after whatever treasure has captured her eye. She stops at nothing. It is in her nature: DETERMINATION - a quality I hope will go on, driving her to achieve endless possibilities.

Back to Wonder Woman. a brief history :: Wonder Woman was created by the same guy who invented the lie detector test, William Moulton Marston. Marston was a consultant to DC Comics and was a champion of women's causes. He was convinced that women were more reliable than men, more honest and could work faster and more accurately. He is quoted in the American Scholar, 1943:
"Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman."