All girls and women have swagger. Some are just waiting for permission to use it.

Now is the time to stop waiting.

 

Want to have more fun and success in your life and care less about what other people think? Then the time has come for you to discover your swagger.

Swagger is high feminine confidence. In the Swagger movement, we believe that swagger is important because women have many talents to contribute to the world, but the world is out of balance, dominated by male energy. I believe that we need both male and female energy in the world and when those energies are in balance, there are more equitable and satisfying life opportunities for all people. By gaining confidence, especially at an early age, women are more able to make their contributions and help bring balance to the world

In our current culture, men have been taught to have too much swagger and women too little. As a result, women have been dis-empowered, reduced to objects for men’s pleasure and stripped of their full personhood.  Due to TV shows, movies, and video games that demean women and glorify violence, many men expect women to be sexy, subservient, and always focused on the needs of men.

How did this happen? Haven’t women made progress toward equal rights in the last 100 years? In 1920, women got the right to vote.  In 1923, the equal rights amendment for women was introduced in Congress and finally passed in 1972.  But it still has never been made law because only 35 of the necessary 38 states have voted for it.

Regrettably, we are sliding backwards. In the 1960’s the “women’s liberation,” movement advocated for equal treatment and equal pay.  There were demonstrations and women’s empowerment programs sprang up everywhere.  Over time, “women libber” and feminist  became derogatory terms and implied an unattractive, possibly lesbian trouble maker. Younger women didn’t want to be identified with this image of “radical” feminism. But ask many young women what they want and they will tell you: equal pay, equal opportunity, equal treatment; the same things that a feminist wants.

As British author Caitlin Moran says, regarding a recent survey in which the majority of US and British women said they were not feminists, “What part of ‘liberation for women’ is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? ‘Vogue’ by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF THE SURVEY?”

Who made feminism an unattractive concept? Who has an interest in making sure that women don’t find their power and their voice?

Women are often culturally brainwashed to believe that they are prisoners of their own biology. Society tells women that in order to procreate, we must be attractive to men. Advertisers are only too happy to grab onto these cultural impulses so they can sell us what we need to be “attractive” to the opposite sex.

The more unrealistic the ideas of beauty, the more products we need to buy to achieve the illusion. Photos in magazines are photoshopped to make already gorgeous people more gorgeous.  In June of 2012, an initative was launched entitled, Keep it Real, a movement inspired by Julia Bluhm who asked Seventeen Magazine to begin showing at least one real unaltered girl every issue. A number of non-profit organizations joined a three day effort of blogging and contacting Seventeen and other main stream women’s magazines to request photos of real women.  After initially appearing uninterested in the idea, Seventeen responded with a “Body Peace Treaty,” vowing not to alter the faces and bodies of their teen models and promising to include a diverse range of body types and ethnicities. Teen Vogue has been asked to do the same. 

Women are unrealistically hyper-sexualized and hobbled by fashion throughout the world. What would be your chances of survival really be if you had to escape from a fire wearing high heels and a tight skirt? It is time for girls and women to wake up and see the ridiculousness of what we have been taught is necessary to be attractive. It’s time to say “enough!” We can value our own uniqueness and the beauty of our bodies without torturing them and we can support other women who are doing the same thing.

As your own personal confidence increases, you’ll find you have less interest in wearing high heels and tight skirts or anything else that makes you uncomfortable. You’ll care less about beauty products that promise to “brighten and beautify” you. Being thin will be out and being healthy, strong, and vibrant will be in. When you are feeling your swagger, you begin to feel beautiful all the time, inside and out.