Everyday Canvas

Women Leading and Eight Words

Prompt: "We need to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves. We have to step up as women and take the lead."~ Beyonce --- Do you agree or disagree with Beyonce? What are good examples in your opinion of women taking the lead? Bad examples?


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I agree with the first sentence. The idea in the second sentence we shouldn’t force, not before we’re perfectly qualified and not looking for an easy way in, just to take the lead.

The first sentence, “We need to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves,” is absolutely correct. In my dinosaur time, no man ever held me back. It was the other older women who were acting more for their kings than the kings themselves, which was during the late fifties and sixties. This stance applied not only to the women around me but to the majority of them. “Of course, my dear, the home should be the woman’s first concern and being a good wife, you wouldn’t neglect your home, hour husband…blah, blah, blah!” Luckily, we had the seventies and the women’s undertaking for equality.

Nowadays, most women are stepping up, but are they taking the lead? I think yes, but only sometimes, and not always.

Then, at other times some women rise in the ranks without due qualification, and for superficial reasons. Think Hollywood! Think Harvey Weinstein!

This bothers me a lot. Women, as well as men, should be able to take the lead only when they deserve it and for the right reasons.

Prompt: Use these words to weave us a freaky Friday tale.
account date paper blackmail hit soul seed boat


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The Gift


He had received a boat as a gift from her on a Friday, a freaky Friday, after he had accused her of blackmail, making a mess of their accounts, and forging the date on their bank statement.

He had shoved the documents to her face. “Look, how the paper is scraped and there’s a white glob on the side! Your handiwork, ain't it!”

She could have hit him right there and then. Instead, she had shrugged it off, but the seeds of her disappointment had to sprout somehow. So, she had bared her soul, among other things, to the bouncer at the bar, who had said, “He shouldn’t talk like that to a woman like you. I’ll piss on him for you.” And the rest was history.

As she swirled around the pole to the applause of the customers, she thought about him now, in his water-logged boat with barnacles stuck on its sides and the algae dancing over him at the bottom of the ocean.