To put it simply, women should feel empowered because they have been given across-the-board rights that they previously did not have. In short, women can vote, they can drive, they can take jobs, pick their husband... all at will, or they may choose not to do so. Women can CHOOSE. That is why they should feel empowered.
Women can choose to be slaves. However, we have the good sense to understand that it is entirely different for a women to choose her Master rather than having him chosen for her (rather than to have him chosen for her by her family, as it used to be). She may have a contract with said Master, that defines the rules within both must abide (as opposed to no rules except those set FOR her BY her Master - who was generally the husband at the time, and who had no rules that HE must abide by in reference to treatment of her). In short, if a woman married, she was property whether she liked it or not, and her husband operated as her Lord and Master, who could do with her anyway he pleased. If he beat her to death, that was how things went. Too bad, so sad.
I remember reading a story about women fighting for the right to vote. Those women were jailed, beaten, raped, told they should know their place, ostracized in their community. The men tried any way they could think of to "put the women back in their place." Thankfully, it didn't work. It was a first step toward women being treated - as a whole - as having equal rights to the menfolk.
Maybe I should say SOME rights are a choice.
I can hardly see it as an economic feasibility for women to stay at home these days. For all practical purposes, women must also work outside the home now in order to support the ridiculous house payments with which we are now saddled in this day and age. We almost HAVE to take jobs now, unless we're born with a silver spoon in our mouths.
Today's woman can marry, or not; it is her choice. Most women do, but increasingly we see large numbers of women who choose not to marry. Again, in this country at least, the economics almost force one to be married. I hesitate to state that women choose homosexuality, as this is something one is born with, not really a choice at all. In this day and age homosexuality is far more an issue than it was even a century ago. In fact, it seems we, as a country, have taken a massive step backwards in progress toward embracing our sexuality.
I can't imagine being told that I am no longer allowed to drive. I love a good V-8 and won't do with anything less these days. It's handy to be able to cruise at the speed limit and then blast around a semi truck going 20 mph in a 65 zone uphill without so much as a yawn.
Let's move on, shall we?
Empowered. It's a strange word, isn't it? Dictionary.com gives us the following definitions for the word Empower:
1. to give power or authority to; authorize, especially by legal or official means: I empowered my agent to make the deal for me. The local ordinance empowers the board of health to close unsanitary restaurants.
2. to enable or permit: Wealth empowered him to live a comfortable life.
Empowered. Some days I wonder if anyone in this United States feels empowered anymore. From the outside, it seems to require wealth if one is to live anywhere above the current popular living standard of "paycheck-to-paycheck." We go to work, we get paid, we pay bills, we have little to nothing left both in money and personal energy. Yet for the bulk of us, there WAS another way open once. We COULD have gotten those good grades, gone military or to college, waited to marry and have children until we were far more financially stable in our lives. We really aren't empowering ourselves with the choices we make, are we?
Feeling empowered is about having choices though. It is about making the choice to get in the situation wherein one has such bills that one can barely make ends meet. It is about making the choice to vote for new government representation every four years. It is about making the choice to buy that V-8 with the ridiculously high payments or the teeny little box car that gets 56 miles to the gallon and the lowest payments possible. It's about choosing to marry the one you love, not someone your family chose when you were age four.
In some ways, we are still ahead of the game in the US. (e.g. Marriage isn't arranged except in cults where it is still illegal, everyone 18+ gets to vote, nobody is forced to kneel and face any particular direction at a certain time every single day of their lives or get stoned to death).
In some ways, we are very far behind and falling further every day. (e.g. Europe views sexuality far more openly than the predominant, backassward, tyrannical, Christian majority of the US - who keep trying to foist their religious rules onto the rest of us instead of just living by their rules and leaving the rest of us the fuck alone.) (Rant concluded)
It is my belief that feeling empowered has to do with having choices.
Empowered. Do I feel empowered? Most days, yes. My slavery is no issue. Master works very well with my head and where the distance does not interfere with us, my needs are met. I cannot say that I would have chosen this lifestyle except for His handling of me being the best and most comfortable way I've felt. Thank you, Sir.
