*My tell-it-like-it-is guest blogger, The Defiant Housewife, is back! This time she’s tackling double standards and the traditional women’s roles. Get ready.

This morning, I turned on the television. Beyonce strutted across the screen belting “Who runs the world?  Girls!” My two daughters simultaneously broke out dancing, and my 3-year-old sang the words with conviction. Every day, I tell her how amazing, intelligent, creative, strong and beautiful she is. She really believes that girls run the world, and so do I.

I have been called many things _ a bitch, a difficult woman, nontraditional, defiant. But, I’m really just me. Unapologetically, me. I have always had an issue with traditional women’s roles. As a young girl, I didn’t dream about growing up and finding my prince charming, having a few kids, and spending the rest of my life cooking and cleaning for them. I wanted to be different. I had watched my mom go to work, come home and make dinner, clean the house and wash clothes without skipping a beat. Meanwhile, my dad came home from work, ate dinner and had a beer. Who the hell would even want to get married?  I thought it looked unfair. I knew that if I got married, it would have to be on my terms. Not the terms that had been dictated by society.

I wanted to get an education, have a successful career, and then, maybe, find someone who would actually want to spend his life with someone like me. I mean, after all, women are constantly being told that the man is the “head of the household,” to let him “be a man,” and to be a “submissive woman.” You have to “play your part.” Well, I don’t believe that shit. I made a choice to never mold myself into what I thought a man would want me to be. The man I would be with would accept me or I would just be alone. I was seeking my equal, and I knew that a man who was truly secure in his manhood would be looking for his equal, too.

I believe that women do the world a disservice by playing small. We minimize our contributions to society and our roles in this world. We accept being considered secondary. Some of us even prefer it! We bear and raise the children of the world who in turn become the next generation of men and women, and many of us are guilty of perpetuating our second-class status by transferring these beliefs to our children. How is it possible that in a world where more women then men are graduating from college and some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world are women that we continue to believe this nonsense?

My friends and I often discuss the double standards. We talk about how many women we know who have accepted a job without negotiating the salary. Or how a man gets praise for watching his own damn kids for a few hours, but a woman who doesn’t absorb herself in motherhood is the Antichrist. We talk about expectations of men and women in relationships and how women often end up with the short end of the stick because we try to be and do everything instead of demanding our men do their share.

I know I can’t change people’s strongly held beliefs, which are often rooted in their religion or culture. But, I hope that I give people something to think about. I hope that girls and women around the world realize that we are only as powerful as we think we are. That we should live our lives on our terms and not lose ourselves conforming to some antiquated perception of what a woman should be. That we, just as we are, are good enough. Or better than we imagined. I want my daughters to grow up proud to be women and realizing that the whole world is in our hands.

As I drove my daughters to daycare this morning I heard a little voice in the backseat singing, “Who are we? What do we run? We run the world!”  And I couldn’t help but smile.

*The Defiant Housewife is a mom of two girls, ages 1 and 3. She used to work outside the home, but recently moved and became a SAHM. Her no-holds-barred sass is a refreshing change and makes me want to have her over for copious amounts of wine. Her previous post is here.