When you see a strong woman walking down the street who looks beat –
Beat down, hammered into the ground,
What do you do?
Do you walk right up to her, get into her beautifully lined face, and tell her to get a manicure? To put on some mascara, for god’s sakes?
Do you tell her she isn’t feminine enough?
Or do you run into her toned arms and tell her that it’s okay, that you’re here now, she can let go, she just needs to wait a little longer to be saved?
Of course, now I’ve forgotten the most important option.
Do you praise her; tell her that she is doing it all right, that no one but her and only her could’ve done any better? 
Oh! Wait… Of course you don’t.
‘Cause that’s just scary.
Seeing a woman who doesn’t need a man, who is doing just fine, thank you very much, on her own?
That’s scary.
A woman who can raise children,  vulnerable, needy little human beings, without having to split the credit with a man who goes to work simply to escape his own home?
Or to gossip over a broken-down water cooler?
That’s scary.
A woman who doesn’t need to be told how to live, how to eat, how to work – both from the inside and out?
Who is only tired of being tired?
That’s scary.
A woman who knows how to stand up for her family and for herself, who knows how to say no?
A woman who knows how to say no, she doesn’t want or need an even quicker-growing blue Chia pet or a great deal on Orangina in bulk?
That’s scary.
Who doesn’t need her daddy, or brother, or uncle, to speak for her, decide what she does and who she does in the name of that insatiable beast called family honor?
That’s scary.
A woman who knows that the way she likes it doesn’t only apply to what goes on in the bedroom.
A woman who doesn’t need a man, but if she wants one, that’s just fine too, and that is all the power she needs?
That’s scary.
But you know the worst part?
The fact that a woman who knows what she wants and doesn’t want, an independent woman, independent of crash diets and makeup regimes harsher than those imposed by dictators-
Those women make those seemingly all-mighty, all-knowing, omnipotent businessmen cower under their polished mahogany desks.
Because the truth is, an independent woman doesn’t need to rely on fasting and creams to know she’s enough-
And that’s just scary.