RIP Farrah Fawcet

Yesterday, I posted a status on Facebook and Twitter that said that in honor of Farrah Fawcet, my ringtone was now the theme from Charlie's Angels.  Several hour later, when the news of Michael Jackson's death hit, several people made comments that I needed to switch my ringtone to Beat It or Thriller.  Taking nothing away from the King of Pop (I owned Thriller and consider to be a fantastic album - yes.  I had it as an album), but I am staying with Charlie's Angels.  Let me use the next few paragraphs to explain why.

As a young girl growing up in the 70s, we were just beginning to have female role models.  Yeah, there were the strong, powerful and accomplished women we read about in history books:  Eleanor Roosevelt, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Nellie Bly etc., but we didn't really see any.  Until Charlie's Angels.  I was fortunate to grow up in a household where my parents told me I could grow up to be anything I wanted.  And, because of a few women I saw on television, I believed it: Charlie's Angels, Wonder Woman and some WTA women - Billie Jean King and Chrissie Evert Lloyd.  

Now, I do realize that Wonder Woman poses a bit of a dilemma.  Without actual superpowers, I understood that I couldn't grow up to be like Wonder Woman (and the invisible jet that you could see her in never really did make any sense).  But she was also an executive of sorts.  Wore powerful suits and found the source of her power to be in her closet surrounded by great clothes and shoes.  This turned out to be true!!  Here was a woman that didn't go around talking about her skills and her abilities.  But she could kick butt.  All while wearing fabulous bracelets.  

Similarly, Charlie's Angels.  I didn't understand that they were sex symbols and posters for male fantasy until many years later.  For me, here were three women (more if you count the later years when they continued to rotate "the blond one" - that's when I tuned out), but I digress:  three women that were in the police department!  And, they went on special missions!  And they solved crimes!  And chased bad guys!  In heels!!  My parents were right, girls could grow up to be anything they wanted.  

So, I write this in honor of Farrah Fawcet.  Because she affected me.  RIP.  And with that, I leave you with the theme song of Charlie's Angels.  Which is my ringtone.  I must come clean though -  when I put in on a few weeks ago when I heard she was sick, I was in some ways,  kidding.  But the more I thought about why I really did it, I realized that Farrah Fawcet and the few other women on TV in the 70s did have a profound effect on the women of my generation.  And we owe them a great thank you.