Honie Briggs

Reading an awesome post by Melanie Crutchfield this morning made me remember a woman who made me laugh when I was just a girl, comedian Carol Burnett. Watching her, play Scarlett O’Hara wearing a drapery fashioned into a gown by Bob Mackie, appearing with sagging boobs and oversized junk in her trunk as the mother of flamenco guitarist Charo, or the dim-witted secretary, Mrs. Wiggins was not only hilarious, but also showed me that women can do anything. It was subtle, but I somehow grasped that if our bodies aren’t perfect or people treat us unfairly, when we work with what we’ve got, laugh at our imperfections, and defy those who would try to break us, nothing can stand in our way.

The Carol Burnett Show featured the greatest talent of the day, women and men, performing comedy sketches and musical numbers, sometimes combining the two with a skill that hasn’t been duplicated since. From her trademark Tarzan yell, to her boney, selfish, buck-toothed character, Eunice, on the spin-off, Mama’s Family, Carol Burnett knew how to bring the funny.

Thanks to comedy legends of the female persuasion, Lucille Ball, Vicki Lawrence, Lily Tomlin, Gilda Radner, and Joan Rivers, just to name a few, thanks to these women who navigated the good ol boy network, women today have only to assert themselves to bring the funny or anything else they want to bring. We just have to be willing to do something we don’t do enough; support each other. You see, when we say to the world, “Bring It!” what we forget is that the world will bring it – with the full force of nature, and when we waste energy knocking each other down, we expose ourselves to a hurricane force shit storm.

Now, I’m not saying we have to form the sisterhood of the synthetic hormone brigade. What I am saying is that we have more information, opportunity, and strength than since the beginning of recorded time. We should stand up, speak up  – speak out and stand out among those who would dismiss us, insult us and try to make us forget we’ve come a long way baby. People with penises, listen up, we love you, most of you, please pull your head out of your collective (and metaphoric) ass. It’s time to work together and stop repeating history.

The future is waiting.

Click this link to see twenty examples of women who fought the good fight.  http://www.pbs.org/stantonanthony/movement/index.html