Women's voices: Standing on their own two feet

Today’s Voices are about setting and honoring boundaries. Women tend to have difficulties with this, and knowing where I need to draw the lines has always been a rather precarious balancing act for me. I’m still trying to figure out how to keep from dropping the plates.

It’s always something, isn’t it?

Because the concept of setting boundaries, making choices and other life management skills is broad, I’m filling the week with Voices singing about the various aspects.

To kick off, let’s go to one of the earlier declarations of emancipation (at least in my memory), “You Don’t Own Me.” Last year, Lesley Gore lent her 1964 cover of it to a PSA urging women to vote for candidates who aren’t stuck in 15^th Century views of female bodies as male property in one form or another. The video features a number of young women in the fashion and entertainment industries lip-synching to Gore’s music.

But the version I’m sharing today is from The First Wives Club, the 1996 don’t-get-mad-get-even film. (Or, as Ivana Trump says memorably toward the end, “Don’t get mad, get everything!”) I love this movie; it’s an example of 1990s screwball comedy—fast pace, witty dialogue, great clothes, plastic surgery.

And, of course, a happy ending.

Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton carry it off with the aplomb you’d have expected from Myrna Loy, Carole Lombard and Katharine Hepburn. The material might not have been up to 1930s Preston Sturges standards, but it’s serviceable. And Maggie Smith (as close as we get to Kate Hepburn these days) is smashing as Gunilla Garson Goldberg, a Manhattan version of Wallis Simpson; I can pretty much watch Smith doing anything on the screen.

The soundtrack also includes a great version of “Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves,” featuring Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox, over a montage of the First Wives, well, doing exactly that. So I’ll toss a clip of that in as an extra added bonus for you. (It’s great for setting the pace for a cardio workout, too.) It's a growly, earthy anthem about another aspect of setting boundaries.

Thinking about standing on their own two feet takes me back to the movie. I purely admire the fact that they are strutting down that street and not falling off those heels.