Sunday, May 03, 2009

BLOOMSDAY 2009- "WE ARE WOMEN, HEAR US ROAR!"


This quarter I have been teaching a Gender Communication class and it has brought up many memories for me of growing up female! Last week one of my female students was using a thesaurus and actually found us listed under "weaker sex"....She was furious as was I. Are you kidding me???

In 1972 (I was born in 1947) Helen Reddy sang a number one hit called "I Am Woman". This song was controversial at the time and yet is still applicable today. The lyrics say in part:

I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back and pretend.

Cause I've heard it all before
And I've been down there on the floor
No one's ever going to keep me down again!

Today is Bloomsday and the race course will be crammed full of women runners. When Jessi and Amy were little we used to sit at the top of Doomsday Hill and yell for the wheelchair athletes. In 1986 I was running and did the Bloomsday course in one hour and twenty minutes....not a big deal by most standards, but great for ME! On another note, Bert did Bloomsday in 50 minutes when he was 50! Way to go Boppa!

And that's what it is really about in my book...EVERY woman having the right to achieve their FULL POTENTIAL with no artificial restrictions like gender.

This morning my daughter Jessi is in the second seed group and is wearing BLUE..she is number 721. She EARNED this place in the race and is running it so sick most folks would stay home. She'll be out there giving it her all! I'm ROOTING for you Jess Jess!

Amy's best friend Jodi is also running as fast as the wind! All I can say is WOW!! Get those Kenyans Jodi! No matter how fast you run...we are so proud of you!

While I am cheering for all of the athletes who have the guts to do Bloomsday, I am sending up a HUGE cheer for all of my "sisters" who are out there!

Give 'em heck ladies! Let's hear you ROAR!!!

God Bless!
Love Linda

2 comments:

The Farrell Family said...

Women have definitely had to prove themselves over the years. I'm blessed that I've never really felt like I had to proven anything to anyone...but God.

Looks like Bloomsday was a big success! What a great event for our community!

Love you,
me

jessithompson said...

Thanks for all the support, Mom! I love the balloons and the big hug the night before the race. You are a great cheerleader!

I was looking on the Bloomsday website at some of the participant statistics and noticed that the percentage of women running now exceeds the men... a huge change from when this race started. Cool!

XOXO Jessi

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