I can do anything better than you!

So  the other day I was singing a song that I sang when I was in elementary school. Its from Annie Get Your Gun the musical, called Anything you Can Do. In case you have never heard of this musical here is a little background on it. It’s about woman named Annie Oakley, based on the real woman herself, who enters a shoot out against a famous gunman named Frank Butler, and she beats him. When she wins she gets to go on tour with him and he falls in love with her and she falls in love with him. In the end they have a rematch for a shoot off and Annie lets Frank win because she wants to try to soothe his ego. Seems all great right?

Well if you look below the surface there are huge antifeminist attacks on Annie. The whole musical she is struggling with who she really is and how people are trying to mold her to be. She isn’t this innocent little lady but a rough as one of the guys. At one point in when they are on tour Frank is about to propose to Annie but she does this amazing gun trick and she gets all the attention he feels hurt and leaves the show. This one of those incidents where you go really, really? All the poor girl did was out shoot you just because she is better doesn’t make her less of a girl or him less of a man. Ironically she sings a song in the musical called, “You can’t get a man with a gun”.

Now I find this true for many things in life men hate to be beat by women, in anything. Being a competitve person myself I can understand hating to lose but when you are a woman and you beat a man in something that is deemed manly it is just twice as bad for both parties, and how come? Why do we as human beings have to put a label on this is something that only men should be amazing at doing or this is something really feminine and should only be for females to do. I think its a about time we start to blur those lines between what is a manly thing to do and what is feminine.

There are many people today who are starting to change that perception. You have women like Marissa Myer the new CEO of Yahoo who is making splashes in trying change the structure of people’s presence at work to make it a more productive atmosphere. Then you have women Presidents in other countries like Cristina Fernandez who was the first female President of Argentina who is trying to reduce the national debt and signed a bill in her country in 2010 to legalize same sex marriage.  There is even a modern real life Annie Oakley if you don’t remember from the 2012 London Summer Olympic when she shot 99 clays out of 100, tying a world record in Skeet Shooting. From my own life I know a girl whom from where I grew up who is trying to be a personal trainer. She goes to the gym everyday to work out and learn different ways to help do training from cardio to weight lighting. She takes pictures on herself and puts them on Facebook showing how much muscle she is building and she is more ripped then guys I know.

Its important for us to realize that this stereotype is not going to change over night. Annie Oakley lived from 1860-1926 and women like Annie are still criticized for being strong women, strong enough to beat a few men along the way. Its just up to us as  human beings to realize these women are paving a way for these strong willful women in the future, so let’s jump on the bandwagon and celebrate them!

If you have never heard or seen Annie Get Your Gun here is a video clip of the song called Anything You Can Do!