Cleavage

Cleavage a word that caused me distress just by being.

The sense of "cleft between a woman's breasts in low-cut clothing" is first recorded in 1946, when it was defined in a "Time" magazine article as the "Johnston Office trade term for the shadowed depression dividing an actress' bosom into two distinct sections."
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question94451.html

Cleft between a woman's breasts became a symbol of women, a body without brain or soul.  If you read my blog for awhile, you know that this is a major trigger for me. 

The dictionary meaning describes a word that seems to divide and opinions are divided. 

cleav·age[klee-vij]  

noun

1. the act of cleaving  or splitting.

2. the state of being cleft.

3. the area between a woman's breasts, especially when revealed by a low-cut neckline.

4. a critical division in opinion, beliefs, interests, etc., as leading to opposition between two groups: a growing cleavage between the Conservative and Liberal wings of the party.

5. the tendency of crystals, certain minerals, rocks, etc., to break in preferred directions so as to yield more or less smooth surfaces (cleavage planes).

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cleavage

I was watching Apprentice and there on national TV was the admonition to the female contestants to use their bodies to make the sells and get ahead with their business ventures.  The recommendation, "Show some cleavage."  I avoid that show.  Teenager in the 70's I was in the middle of women's rights.  However, studying how the law was written I finally felt that the law must have been written by a misogamist.  It impoverished women without truly making there opportunities equal.  I also learned during that time that you can not legislate attitude, only behaviors.  I didn't have any cleavage even before cancer.  Just wasn't much there, sufficient for nursing 6 babies that came to our lives but none for show.  I am aging now.  My body is bulging and sagging where it never did before.  I use clothes to conceal missing body parts and shrimpiness.

Opinions are divided as to how women want or need to be viewed today.  More and more girls and women are encouraged to see themselves without limits.  However, more and more women are judged by how sexy they are rather than any intelligence or compassion.  I spent 10 years as a woman computer tech and encountered prejudices over and over.  What I didn't suspect was my own prejudice.   Experiences in my formative years left a seething bitterness that I didn't suspect was there.

KavinCoach first helped me to see how deep down I had very negative feelings.  I buried them deep and denied their existence.  He was my counselor and knew that any emotional garbage left hidden would continue to fester and destroy all chance of becoming healthy.  Pealing back my memories to reveal the maggot infested distortions in thinking....agonizing.  Although I said out loud that woman were amazing and God's greatest creation, I had this pocket of puss buried under layers of lies.  During the process of acknowledging and recount how I felt I came face to face with one of my own demons, my own femininity.  The project of 19 women became a turning point for me.  I took a hard look through my camera lens to see all these different and astounding women.  

CZBZ commented on my post on women and shared that her perspective is quite different.  It is.  Her experience was vastly different than mine.
http://n-continuum.blogspot.com/2012/08/role-models-june-callwood.html

 I am now come full circle.  I believe women are God's greatest creation and I am thankful to be one of them.