By Lisa Scottoline
Bradley Chicken Cooper (left) Goldie the Hen (right)
It’s not Hot Girl Summer, it’s Hot Girlpower Summer.
And I’m here for it.
Let me explain.
We begin at home.
Or rather, in my henhouse.
I have a flock of ten hens and a rooster named Bradley Chicken Cooper.
I mean, why not?
By the way, I didn’t want a rooster because they don’t lay eggs. In fact, in the upside-down world of poultry, everybody wants hens and nobody wants roosters.
Roosters are Just Ken.
I ended up with a rooster because I got him as a chick and they mistakenly thought he was a girl.
Which ruffled his feathers.
To return to point, everything was fine in the chicken coop, where Bradley Chicken Cooper crows every morning.
If you saw A Star is Born, you know he has a great voice.
But the other day, I noticed that his crowing sounded different, so I went to the coop and discovered that it wasn’t him crowing, but one of the hens.
Hens don’t crow, they cluck, but the crowing hen was Goldie, an otherwise docile Buff Orpington, which is a breed with pretty golden feathers. Anyway I looked it up online and found out that hens will crow to assert new dominance in the pecking order.
Goldie’s still crowing, and I don’t know if she’ll stop.
Would you?
So it turns out we girls can do anything.
Who knew?
Answer: Barbie.
Barbie is the first movie to gross $1 billion made by a woman, Greta Gerwig, proving not only that women make great directors but also buy tons of tickets.
If you didn’t see Barbie, go.
It’s not a movie, it’s a religious experience.
I cried at the end, leaking the last of my estrogen.
The theater was packed with women of all generations, and there was even a gigantic Barbie box in the lobby, in which I took a selfie with my best friend Franca Barbie.
We had to wait in line behind eight-year-olds.
Which was tough because our bedtime is earlier.
The movie isn’t only about women, but also about how traditional views don’t do men any favors, as illustrated by Ryan Gosling as Ken.
I know, I need to get a goose to name Ryan Gosling.
Another example of Hot Girlpower Summer is Taylor Swift, whose Seattle concert got so many women shaking it off that they actually caused an earthquake.
Yikes! I mean, Yay!
Taylor Swift even gave massive bonuses to everyone who works on her tour, so she’s Straight-up Goddess Barbie.
And it’s no coincidence that this summer also saw the appearance of a female roundworm that had been dormant in Siberia for 46,000 years, then suddenly came to life and started having babies. She’d been living in a frozen hole 130 feet below the surface, which coincidentally is a description of my second marriage.
Scientists can’t explain how this happened, but I can.
She finally woke up.
I feel you, girl.
Better late than never.
I think something is happening this summer, in that the world is finally opening up for women, hens, and roundworms.
We’ve been at the bottom of the pecking order for a long time, and we’re finally making our way to the top.
I know there’s a backlash of misogyny, but I guarantee you, it’s not going to win in the long run.
It’s a new day, and we girls are learning to crow.
And you know what?
We sound great.
Copyright 2023 Lisa Scottoline