The Standard of Lady

The blog "The Art of Manliness" seems to have struck a chord with so many of my friends. Finally! they say, what a real Man should be! Strong, courteous, a man of the world and of the home.

But where's the "Art of Womanliness"? Or the "Art of Being a Lady"? In fact, we're faced with two dilemmas.

First, what is it we want to be? "Woman" has too strong a tone, almost masculine after the feminist revolution of the last century. It has none of the grace and beauty we associate with "Lady." But "Lady" has little of the strength we want from womanhood and too much of the superficiality of the pretty, little decorations ladies apparently used to be. The Ideal is in-between, or combines both. But we don't have a word to describe it.

Which leads us to the second dilemma. Without a word, a concept, how is it to be measured? Is there a standard for the "Real Lady"? Who exemplifies it? Real men can be found - we know them, usually in an older generation. But when we think of a "real lady," no one comes to mind.

Perhaps we are too "hard upon our own sex"; perhaps we have set the bar too high, placed "woman" on a pedestal and fallen in love with an ideal. If so, this blog is an attempt to make Galatea come to life. To find her, first - to create her if we need to. And then to see if she does and can exist in this post-modern, post-feminist, post-deconstructionist, post-aristocratic, egalitarian world.

This blog is in search of the standard.