“We cannot solve life's problems except by solving them.” -M. Scott Peck

Which means, you're invited! To a revolution of sorts.

I imagine most of us have had the experience of reading a fashion magazine and feeling a little less confident about ourselves after about 3 minutes. I know that whenever I read, rather look, at those magazines I feel those dumb stereotypes closing in tight around me. The false and impossible notions that I should somehow, in some way, become a size 2, that I should have perfect teeth and somehow be able to afford the latest and most expensive fashions. In this way, it is reinforced to me that this is what womanhood is. It's not though. It makes me so mad that people are telling us this, and that at 25, for all the smarts I may possess, I am still lessened as a woman by perusing through a fashion magazine. I was thinking about this while in line at the grocery store the other day, when an idea came to me. What if I could write notes to all the girls and women reading those magazines, telling them what I appreciate about them, what makes them beautiful and wonderful, and what if that person believed what was written and put down the magazine, or at least felt more empowered. And then I thought, what if all sorts of people were writing little notes for other women.

And so I propose an action, for men and women alike. To join us in the revolution, think of an empowering story about womanhood. It can be a time you felt empowered as a woman, as a mother, as a wife, as a human being. Write a vignette about an empowered or strong woman that you know. Write about why you love being a woman. Write the story (it can be as short or long as you like) as a comment or email (rippinsweet@gmail.com) and we will print them off and put them in fashion magazines as guerilla inserts all across the valley.

Tell your friends, pass it on, use it as a young women's activity, announce it in Relief Society, go out and do it yourself. I get so excited just thinking about all of us not simply accepting what we are told to be, but being who we were meant to be. I think this is a small way of doing that.

For what is done or learned by one class of women, becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women." - Elizabeth Blackwell