Can't we have it both ways?

It’s been ages I know, take a couple of hugs my pips, there you are.So while I was awayish I missed a party. what! a party! I wasn’t so happy with myself, I have definitely learnt my lesson, won’t be allowing the rest of you have fun ‘on me’. Anyhow since then am feeling myself again, having the life an independent woman like me ought to have. Bet some of you have seen this before but hey what’s the biggie.here we goRecently, a male colleague challenged me about the female love for things associated with beauty, fashion or shopping over what he called ‘more serious’ things like politics, global warming, finances and generally all those ‘hard’ topics. To this thirty something year-old-man, women today seem to be more fascinated by trivial things. Apparently, he knows many women who wouldn’t bat an eyelid before they pick a magazine like Vogue, Cosmopolitan or People or watch Fashion TV and E, because these have less serious ‘things’ as compared to Business Week, a magazine withmore pressing issues. While I didn’t know the circles of women he has been interacting with, I was at loss of what to say for a minute or two. It made me wonder if an expression of one's femininity makes one any less of an intellectual. To be honest I felt like kicking his sorry arse. Even as I glimpse through intellectual books, a fashion or beauty page or magazine will catch my attention. Let’s face it; women, irrespective of their position want to appear stunning. “Nothing is worse than a beautiful woman without brains,” I told him. Just because women love to associate with all these ‘trivial things’ doesn’t make them any less. Besides, it doesn’t mean that those other ‘more pressing issues’ of development and politics don’t meet the urgency they deserve in women’s lives. Just take a look at pictures of leading feminists, executive managers and female politicians both locally and internationally. You would think they just walked out of a beauty parlour rather than the boardroom. So tell me, I asked him, don’t you think these women take time to read about these things so that they can enhance their appearance? And to think he meant that to be intelligent and developmental, one had to disregard all things that enhance their appearance!Beauty and fashion, related aspects that have a lot to do with one’s appearance are inevitable as are the so-called ‘serious issues’. Deal with it. Just coz am gona spend hours in the salon treating myself or spend my hard earned money on those hot stilettos doesn’t mean that I don’t listen to BBC every morning. Besides how is a gal supposed to catch a hot guys eye becoz he still needs to want to talk to you because you look hot so that he can listen to all the intellectual stuff you say. At the end of the day who cares anyway? If I can afford it, why not brains have their place as does beauty. I would rather have ma brains hidden in a hot looking body than have them in an ish ish one.