Welcome, Ven a gozar!

I do not know if you are aware of it or not, but Matt Langdon has a blog, the Hero Workshop in which he actively looks for everyday heroes in everyday life. I have been following Matt’s blog for a few weeks now. Recently, Matt wrote about female heroes, and why are there not more of them in print. I thought that was a good question!

I thought of a few women right off the top of my head that may fit the hero category, Golda Meir came to my mind. Golda Meir served as Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 until 1974. Golda Meir took Israel though some tough times, and some serious conflict. She was a lady of iron, with a will few men could match in her position. While I know little about here other than what was on the news, she did she thought had to be done.

Another stateswoman Margaret Thatcher served as the British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990 was another tough lady. Margaret Thatcher took Britain through the then recent war with Northern Ireland, and led the engagement to retake the Falkland Islands. Once again, I thought few men could match her resolve and determination to do what she thought needed to be done.

Maybe I was not looking in the right places for female heroes…. I was looking for women who fit my idea of a hero, people I admire such as Ali, Eddie Rickenbacker and the like. It became apparent that female heroes do not play in the same ballpark. Marion Jones, is certainly showing heroic qualities of late, I hope she continues to inspire, but there have to be many more female heroes out there.

As I was listening to music, Gloria Estefan , and Mellissa Etheridge came to mind. They are close, but not quite fitting my definition of a female hero. This was getting tough, I could see what the problem is. Female heroes do not get the publicity, and recognition their male counterparts do. Being a man, I was hard pressed to come up with a female hero.

I moved my thoughts closer to home, and it came to me who real female heroes are! Real female heroes are my Wife, Daughters, Mother, Mother in law, Aunts, and Sister’s In Law. Real female heroes are all the women in my life who climb out of bed every day and make sure my world stays stable and everything flows [mostly] the way it should. They are the women who do most of the housework, out of the house work, and clean up after the rest of us!

If it were up to men to remember holidays, birthdays, weddings, and other important dates, well, it just would not happen. Women take care of these dates, and orchestrate these events mostly flawlessly. All we men do is show up and be sociable for a few hours. Even NASA found that shuttle and other missions run better with a woman on the crew. Before women were part of the space shuttle crews, men were men and when the shuttle would land after a mission, they looked and smelled like it, as did the shuttle itself. Having a women on board changes all that, just a woman’s being there!

My search for female heroes is over. For real female heroes, I do not need to turn on the television and watch a Wonder Woman rerun to see a female hero. I only need to look as far as the women in my life. These women often without thanks raised me, fed me, cleaned me, and cleaned up after me. They gave me birthday parties, fixed my hurts, and stood by as I did boy, and later man things in my life. Women keep the calendar of life. They mange the world in gentle measures, rarely receiving credit for their effort!

I now understand why I had difficulty finding real female heroes in my world. Why was it not apparent before, these female heroes? Like so many things seemingly hidden from view, all I had to do was take my blinders off, and there they are, always standing right next to me!

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