I happened to be up early enough this morning and with time to kill before work so I flipped on the Today Show. A report caught my attention and immediately made me think of this blog. I have to know what you think of this. Read the full report here and then comment and tell me what’s going on in your head. There’s also an article in this month’s Marie Claire that you can read here.

Apparently, there are over 2 million women in America are non-custodial mothers. These are women who have gotten divorced and relinquish physical custody to the father. Now, I don’t want this to become a discussion about divorce, but I do think it’s interesting the stigma attached to women who do decide to allow their ex-husbands physical custody of the children. At first I was shocked and appalled, but then, I started to understand why a person’s initial reaction to that mother would be to judge. After being entrenched in a social idea that women should always have custody, that women should always be the primary caregiver, it’s hard for some to wrap their minds around the idea that a mother who loves her children (because all the mothers mentioned in this story seem like loving, involved mothers) would be willing to hand over physical custody, but why is it not an outrage for a dad who loves his children to give up custody? It’s becoming more and more acceptable for a dad to be the primary caregiver (whether the couple is still together or not), but on the other side of the coin, women are still being stigmatized when they give up their socially accepted role.

My bff Ash, who I’ve partnered with on tea@elevensies, brought this article to my attention, and I wanted to bring it to yours. NorthxEast, a site aimed at helping bloggers, has compiled a list of the fifty most influential female bloggers. I’ve only heard of a handful of them (that handful are the really famous like Arianna Huffington), but that’s because most don’t blog about things I’m interested in. To see so many female bloggers who have made blogging a profession and become a force in the blogging world is an inspiration to little-old-wannabe-blogger me. I can only dream of the kind of RSS subscriptions and comment numbers these ladies rack up in a day! Need some motivation or inspiration. Just look at this list that shows what some ambition and guts can do.

NxE’s Fifty Most Influential Female Bloggers

Sorry for the impromptu hiatus. Keeping up with such a specific topical blog is difficult. Who knew it would be so hard? Of course, slacking on your relationship with God will also hinder a blog with a spiritual foundation. Plus, I’m going to graduate school and have been devoting most of my Internet presence to building up my new more general blog with my good friend Ash, tea@elevensies.

Enough excuses though! Let’s get back into the action. Yesterday, I had an interesting moment that reminded me of the feministic charge I used to feel growing up. Working on the shipment team at Old Navy, as I have done since starting work there a year ago, I was unloading a truck full of boxes of clothes. Most of the shipment team had already taken loads of clothes to the sales floor to start placing them, leaving two people scanning boxes into the computer, one person sorting the contents of boxes, and two of us (one being me and the other being a guy) removing boxes from the truck and stacking them throughout the back room. The boxes were heavy, but I’ve unloaded heavier with no problems. When one of guys (new to the shipment team, it was his first day unloading the truck) from the sales floor came back for another load, one of the girls scanning boxes, yelled at him to take my place so I didn’t have to unload heavy boxes. Now, I know I’m only 110 lbs, but I know what I’m doing and like I said, have lifted boxes heavier higher than the ones I was unloading yesterday. Also, like I said, he was completely lost unloading the truck which is why we sent him out to the sales floor. I hollered back to the girl, “I’ve got it!” The other guys laughed, and I continued to unload the truck. All of it. And guess what? I wasn’t even sore the next day.

What this incident made me realize is how long its been since I’ve felt that surge of girl power. I’ve struggled a long time being married to a man’s man with how feminism works in a marriage. It’s not that my husband is a sexist. He isn’t. He doesn’t keep me from pursuing my dreams at all. In fact, he believes in them more than I do sometimes. But I do the majority of the cleaning, cooking. I let him open doors for me. Sure, I can open my own doors, and he is capapble of cleaning, and he often grills for our summer dinners. I do the majority of the cooking and cleaning because he works full-time, and I don’t so I have more time than he does. Plus, I like cooking. I let him open doors and do heavy lifting because he loves me, and it’s more important to let him show his love and respect in this way than me to make a statement. This marriage is a marriage of mutual respect. I haven’t had to bring out the girl power in a year. It’s been nice, but it was nice to remember that it’s still needed.

Of course, I’m not trying to blow this incident out of proportion. I know it was minor and silly, but it was a flicker of girl power that I hadn’t felt in a while, and it felt good to do something that someone didn’t think I could because I was a “weak” girl.