“A strong woman understands that the gifts such as logic, decisiveness, and strength are just as feminine as intuition and emotional connection. She values and uses all of her gifts to her best advantage to ensure she is never viewed less than man.
Every woman worth her salt knows that there is no sensation on earth as intoxicating as 'empowerment.' 'She believed she could, so she did' is her guiding principle. She knows that there is on this earth, no force equal to that of a determined woman; she inhales confidence and dispels all doubt. She knows the benefit of dreams and she knows how to make her dreams happen. She has an innate belief in the person she wants to become and is never squeamish about what has to be done to become that person. In short, she has the balls to become a woman and the good sense to remain her own woman! When she marries, it will be she who does the choosing of a man or woman whom she considers worthy of her.
The wisest thing that any woman can ever learn in today's world is that nobody gives you power; you have to take it if you ever want to have it! Never allow the question to be 'Who's going to let me?' Instead ask, 'Who's going to stop me?'
One of the strongest and most independent women I ever knew and who became a great friend of mine for fifteen years before her early death, was the environmentalist pioneer and founder of 'The Body Shop', Anita Roddick. We both once marched 1,000 disabled children from the Huddersfield Railway Station to the Town Hall and held the traffic up for an hour doing so. Anita helped me do my charity work in many Yorkshire schools and one of her favourite messages to the girls was; ' Don't put yourself down because you're smaller than boys of your age and don't let them push you around. If ever you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito; I have!'
I missed Anita immensely after her death and there was a time when we might have become more than friends had neither of us been married. I'm so glad that before she died, I was able to write, produce and arrange for her a song called 'Our World', which was sung to her by one thousand Huddersfield School children at the Huddersfield Town Hall during the 1990s. It is the only song I have ever written though I have written a hymn. The song was later incorporated in a musical play I wrote, and which the National Lottery paid the production costs entitled, 'Douglas the Dragon Musical Play.' The play and its original songs are readily available on my website and can be freely downloaded worldwide. To hear the song, Our World' dedicated to Anita Roddick follow the link. " William Forde: November 24th, 2015.
http://www.fordefables.co.uk/uploads/1/0/1/5/10153721/04_our_world.mp3