It's International Women's Day. And I'm seeing lots of posts about being "strong women", "raising strong women" etc etc. How we should be raising our daughters to realise that "they can". I don't want to be negative but actually this emphasis on "strong women" and "she can" I perceive as suggesting a lot of females either "can't" or are "weak in some way". That many are chocolate teapots and struggle to be the women they could be. Actually women have and always will be high achievers either in sight of people or behind the scenes. We didn't really talk about gender issues in our family the same way people do on social media these days. We didn't reinforce an idea that women have to prove themselves in some way. My female role models had surrounded themselves with men folk that valued them as equals and didn't question their capabilities based on gender. As I went out into the greater world and followed my heart yes I came across many challenging attitudes mostly from men where they were constantly looking for me to somehow prove I was adequate. Did it deter me? No. Because it was clearly their problem and I always assumed they were insecure in some way. Did I go the extra mile to prove I was a strong woman? No. Not my battle. I just continued to do what I had set my mind to. My parents had never questioned this ability- why should I? Maybe where we say "raise strong women" we should be saying "raise emotionally intelligent children" "raise children secure in themselves".