{"id":1,"date":"2014-07-31T10:58:51","date_gmt":"2014-07-31T10:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/damesnet.co.uk\/?p=1"},"modified":"2014-08-05T10:45:40","modified_gmt":"2014-08-05T10:45:40","slug":"dames-are-a-girls-best-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=1","title":{"rendered":"Dames are a girl\u2019s best friend"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Barbara<\/a>

Barbara \/ damesnet<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve often thought about the stock phrase linking diamonds and girls.\u00a0 It made a great song, but is there even a grain of truth in it?\u00a0 No one can deny that diamonds make a finger look that little bit better, or can get that throat really sparkling, but that aside, \u00a0who really is a girl\u2019s best friend?.<\/p>\n

Diamonds are great and have their place in the world, but when push comes to shove, who else is going to make us feel like a million dollars except ourselves?\u00a0 I mean, if I can\u2019t inspire myself with my wit, erudite taste and razor sharp acumen, is it just down to a rock then?<\/p>\n

So what are the options? Who can provide a role model we all aspire to?<\/p>\n

How many times have you read recently that little girls just want to be on the tv? The vacuous role models they find there are striving to destroy the final shreds of a feminist viewpoint that certainly shaped my formative years.\u00a0 Pink outfits for little girls, diamond rings for big girls.\u00a0 I used to fondly believe that just as my generation benefited from a much wider choice than our mothers\u2019, in terms of work, sexuality, partners, culture etc, then so the generations that followed would continue to expand along the same lines.<\/p>\n

So what has gone wrong? In my view it is down to the dwindling influence of the dame. Dames can be our inspiration at times like this.\u00a0 Women who are confident, positive and don\u2019t rely on the media to dictate their preferences.\u00a0 No need for rampant feminism, just an objective perspective on life, and the freedom to make choices. Dames need to make themselves heard to support the backlash against control of women, whether it is through media manipulation aimed at producing a generation of anorexics or enforced hijabs by the elders in their family.<\/p>\n

Think of all those remarkable women who through an act of marriage suddenly found themselves in the far flung corners of the British Empire. They were, of course, born to marry and breed and follow their husbands whither fate took them.\u00a0 Yet at the same time many of them displayed extraordinary courage and independence in the face of extreme adversity, retaining their personal integrity in highly difficult circumstances, most of which I am sure would reduce the standard A list member to abject whimpering.\u00a0 Facing the odd scorpion in \u2018I\u2019m a Celebrity Get Me out of Here\u2019 just doesn\u2019t cut the mustard or merit a moment of comparison.<\/p>\n

I would nominate such people for instant elevation to damehood, if such a term can be coined. \u00a0This isn\u2019t a plea for a return to the 19th<\/sup> century, just a proposal that as dames we derive our inspiration from some of the extraordinary women who never worried what others thought of them.<\/p>\n

And that doesn\u2019t exclude owning a diamond or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diamonds are great and have their place in the world, but when push comes to shove, who else is going to make us feel like a million dollars except ourselves? I mean, if I can\u2019t inspire myself with my wit, erudite taste and razor sharp acumen, is it just down to a rock then?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,55,54],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1190,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/1190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}