one of our greatest charms

I guess I'm pretty strange. I just don't fit in with the women of today. Since I prefer to pursue femininity instead of feminism, I am perceived to be odd. But I enjoy being a girl. I like pretty things like flowers and dresses and lace. My favorite color is pastel pink. I love every aspect of homemaking and don't see it as drudgery. I loved being a mom and homeschooling--all the teaching and learning how to be efficient have made me a different person. I love to read and write and garden and sew and cook and play music. I like keeping chickens and bees. Secretly, I'd like to have a small herd of goats so that I could make artisan cheeses in my retirement from homeschool teacher/full-time mother. I like to sing but cringe of singing solo anymore--think Mary Bennett of Pride and Prejudice--need I say more. Except for electricity, central heating, and running water, I could have lived comfortably in earlier days. Women were allowed to be ladies then.

“Why do women want to dress like men when they’re fortunate enough to be women? Why lose femininity, which is one of our greatest charms? We get more accomplished by being charming than we would be flaunting around in pants and smoking. I’m very fond of men. I think they are wonderful creatures. I love them dearly. But I don’t want to look like one. When women gave up their long skirts, they made a grave error….” The Private World of Tasha Tudor

"More than ever before we need women of faith, virtue, vision, and charity, as the Relief Society declaration proclaims. We need women who can hear and who will respond to the voice of the Lord, women who at all costs will defend and protect the family. We don’t need women who want to be like men, sound like men, dress like men, drive like some men drive, or act like men. We do need women who rejoice in their womanhood and have a spiritual confirmation of their identity, their value, and their eternal destiny. Above all, we need women who will stand up for truth and righteousness and decry evil at every turn and simply say, “Lord, here am I, send me.” M. Russell Ballard, “Women of Righteousness,” Ensign, Apr 2002, 66–73