The essay "My Hips, My Caderas" by Alisa Valdes brings up issues in my life that i never really thought about. I am lucky enough to have two cultures like Valdes. My mother is from the island of Haiti and my father from Puerto Rico. I can relate to the subject of "caderas" being that all of the members of my fathers side of the family have hips and take pride in them. Dancing to spanish music requires you to move your hips or else you look very stiff. If you are not moving your hips the person you are dancing with will often take it upon themselves to move them for you.Luckily for me my mothers culture embraces women with hips as well. Having a butt is not a problem in either cultures that i belong to.
What is a problem in both cultures is weight. If you are too fat they make comments at family events about the "unattractive weight". When you loose the weight they complain about you suddenly being too skinny. It is as if your body can never seem to be the right size or proportion. Over the years i have learned to accept the fact that i do not contain big hips like my aunts, i do not contain a big butt like my mother, and i am very tall and skinny and top heavy. That is the point that Alisa Valdes tries to make, to be comfortable with yourself and finds someone that accepts you for your mind.
Women often think that finding someone who accepts them for solely their mind has to be one of the opposite sex. Feminist to me have it all wrong and this is well explained by "Lyz Baranowski". As women no matter how much we admit we all want to be loved by a man however we choose not to settle. To say you do not need a man makes you sound bitter to men and makes you unapproachable. Women have come along way in society and there are many powerful men in this world that can meet the standards of the powerful business women. Pretty soon with all the mixed races of people and different levels of success the world is going to become very integrated with all types of races and powerful people.
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