Have you taken the Swagger Survey? More than 70 women have!  You can take a look and see if you have swagger.  Make your voice heard!  Go the Swagger Survey button to the right or click on http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6LWRJ8B. .

 Here are some of the responses so far:

Question:  Do you think you have swagger?

I’m confident and purposeful but I value modesty. I don’t want to swagger and own the room, I want to know everything going on in the room and know how to manage it all, in a low-key way that doesn’t center on me.

I’ve had my own design practice for 14 years and have successfully weathered the economic downturn. I think you have to have swagger to do that!

I work in the construction industry as Cindy has. Knowing what you’re doing, how you’re going to accomplish your goals, all with confidence is how I try to portray myself.

As a female photographer dating back to the late 1970′s, I had to develop swagger in a previously male-dominated profession. I had to defend this swagger for my career choice to my mother, who encouraged me to do something “normal” like be a teacher or a nurse. I even had to defend this career choice to a niece in the 1990s who told me she thought is was an unusual occupation for a woman.

Question: Where do you have swagger?

I am always quintessentially ME in all settings, true to myself and my commitment to be ME every moment.

In my relationship I have been communicating my needs and desires more than I have in any other relationship. This has been one of my major goals in life right now, because I feel that if I am going to be in a relationship I want to fully be myself in it. The other area for me is acting. I feel like it is an area of my life where I use my voice and tap into my creativity, self-expression, and confidence.

At school: trying not to focus on the drama and childishness and staying true to myself and my study habits. At work: trying to be confident with my guests so they feel comfortable with me.

Swagger at work means confidence, leadership and communication skills (especially at public meetings!), design confidence, technical expertise, ability to work with all types – city officials, architects, developers, homeowners, contractors, etc. Swagger at sports for me is taking up tennis in my late forties and meeting new people, joining team, moving up in the rating system, and having a blast.

I don’t take on anything that doesn’t belong to me. In my relationships with men I don’t apologize for truly being the strong independent woman men say they want and then immediately either run for cover or try to change you. I practice my religion( without fear or worrying about offending anyone who doesn’t understand.)

Demanding excellence at work, being a leader in sports, and an equal partner in relationships.

WHERE DO YOU HAVE SWAGGER?

Do you believe that each of us has a reason to be here; a creative purpose?  In marketing there is something called – your unique selling proposition – meaning, what do you have to sell that is new and different – unique to you.  We can each ask ourselves – what is my unique creative purpose – what do I have to contribute to the world? Perhaps you are called to work for social justice or to express yourself through painting, writing, or singing. 

If you find your creative purpose, the universe will often support your efforts. Resources may appear as you need them.  But that doesn’t mean that it will be easy or that you will always feel supported by your family and friends.  In fact, any venture that seems outside the mainstream, may be viewed with suspicious or at least a lack of understanding.  If you choose to pursue your unique creative purpose, your leap into a new life may make other people uncomfortable.  Why?  I suspect that your action may stir something deep inside someone else - a glimmering of their own purpose. Perhaps that person is not yet ready to listen to that glimmering.

It is true that turning toward your creative purpose may cause disruption in your life.  You may feel called to quit your job and start a non-profit organization or leave your marriage to pursue your own adventure. You may face challenges to progress along your creative path – rejection, misunderstanding.

So why pursue your unique creative purpose; your bursts of inspiration?  Read more…

The girl and the woman, in their new, their own unfolding, will but in passing be imitators of masculine ways, good and bad, and repeaters of masculine professions. After the uncertainty of such transitions it will become apparent that women were only going through the profusion and the vicissitude of those (often ridiculous) disguises in order to cleanse their own characteristic nature of the distorting influences of the other sex. Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately and fruitfully and more confidently, must surely have become fundamentally riper people, more human people than easy going man…This humanity of woman, borne its full time in suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she will have stripped off the conventions of mere femininity in the mutations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet fell it approaching today will be surprised and struck by it. Some day….there will be girls and women whose name will no longer signify merely an opposite of the masculine, but something in itself, something that makes one think, not of any complement and limit, but only of life and existence: the feminine human being.

Rainier Maria Rilke Letters to a Young Poet

The poet Rainier Maria Rilke wrote these words between 1902-1908 as part of a series of 10 letters to a young poet.  Even at the turn of century, some saw a vision of women emerging as strong voices, leaders and partners.  When I read this quote, sometimes I think we have made much progress, especially in some of the more progressive countries of Europe.  Other times, I feel we are still standing on the verge of our emergence as full people.