I remember taking history classes in school…I certainly got a lot from some of 
them but in general and don’t think I ever felt connected to history as how it connects to my life, my choices, or my future. It was the study of THE PAST and it was old and it was over, it was something interesting to look back and see, but it was always ‘less than’ where we are now.
I have now been giving my GOOD GIRLS AREN’T FUNNY talks in New York City for a few months and what I have seen, over and over, is that it is the HISTORICAL perspective on being a woman in 2010 that is the MOST liberating, the most helpful, and the most alive. It’s fascinating! The minute I 
put up the slide from my power point presentation that has a timeline starting in 3000 BC and goes until the present moment, something shifts. Suddenly we are all talking about WOMAN, not just the 40 individuals in the room. We’re talking about all of our SHARED past lasting thousands of years, though countless cultural shifts and leaps — instead of our individual, unique paths that make us seem more different than similar. It’s like the camera dramatically pulls back and back and back until we see our 
lives as the tip of an arrow that’s been moving for a long, long time. We’re looking at who we are and what our lives look like now as a result of a PROCESS, as a result of things continually happening throughout history that we keep adjusting to or pushing against.
And it goes beyond “oh, that’s an interesting fact”…it actually starts to free us up because we can see WHY we do and think the way we do. We can see what ideas, roles, assumptions, fears, and values we have inherited…and WHY they are what they are.
For example, in the recent talk I gave at the Tribeca Film Center for a group of wonderful women, (and 1 man) members of the New York Women in Film and Television, 1 young woman was challenging the statement I made that Disney 
heroines (Snow White and the lot) are exemplars of the modern/Good Woman structure. Kind, selfless (interesting word), pure, innocent, non-threatening, passive. She was a little upset because she said those were the ‘old’ characters but the new ones were different…Mulan, Ariel and the lot. She said they were tough, smart and not like 
Snow White. However, I pointed out that in the end, they are still beautiful women who are good girls at their core and win a man over because of how beautiful and good they are. And the whole point of those films is that reward=man.
Understanding how even the ‘updated’ version of a Disney film is still playing out the Good Woman/Romance-based storyline is something one can see with much more clarity when we see where the Good Woman emerged in history, why it emerged, and how recently it was the main point of a woman’s existence. (see first posts for more about this) On a historical timeline, the 1950′s housewife was who we were this morning and the 
real women of Jane Austen’s world were here just a few days ago. History is our friend…it helps explain who we are, how we got here…all so that NOW we can start to decide what of our collective past we want to take with us and what we want to leave in the dustbin.
Yes to leaving the parts of the collective past in the dustbin that no longer serve us, a case of wanting to be free, then: ‘the heart will guide us, it will indicate what needs to be left behind, and what needs to be avoided’. Always moving forward, higher further and deeper, and letting go of everything, as the need arises to begin ever new…..