Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your make-up, soon he will open the door,

Don’t think because there’s a ring on your finger, you needn’t try any more.
For wives should always be lovers too,
Run to his arms the moment that he comes home to you.
I’m warning you,
Day after day, there are girls at the office and the men will always be men,
Don’t stand him up, with your hair still in curlers, you may not see him again.

• Excerpt from Wives and Lovers, Jack Jones

A song from the times when it was not so lovely to be a woman. One that graciously cautions women to not let themselves go so they can keep their men. The narrative that blames women and justifies men’s infidelity. Narratives that are monumentally harmful and thrown rather carelessly in society. A landscape that has some roped to its neglected sidelines.

To the women out here that are trying to right these wrongs, keep fighting. It is possible to communicate across the divide.

I feel destined to transcend our house that looked like all the other houses, in our town that looked like so many other towns, in a life that looked like so many other lives. I felt I was a well of untapped potential, deeper than anything a conventional life could unearth.– Dominique Matti

You are the one thing in life that you can control! It is possible to write one’s own story. It is possible to write a different story.

Step right up.