I'm a barefoot runner. I'm a woman. I live in one of the richest communities in the US. I feel safe when I leave my home. Every single time.

I am one of the few.

The living that I make does not afford me the level of comfort that I live in. I am truly blessed and have to remind myself daily to thank God for the blessings He keeps piling on my head. My income is well-below the level it should be for this area, yet I thrive here. When it comes down to it, I should be living in an area that would have me looking shifty-eyed at every person who passes me.

I run the Bethesda Trolley Trail, a beautiful trail that goes through neighborhoods of homes with people who drive Land Rovers and BMW SUV's. I run past people walking their dogs, a YMCA that costs $160/mo, a private Catholic school, a park, million-dollar homes, a prep school, Whole Foods. I see other runners, friends walking & chatting, and cyclists heading to work. I've never felt worried or scared while running.

Reading Runner's World this month, there is a story about a Ugandan man who was running and found a dozen kids sleeping under a bus to keep warm because their parents had all been shot. He took them in and paid for their care and food even though he had nothing. I think about what I would do in the same situation. I'm never going to find a dozen homeless children on any of my runs... most of the kids in my neighborhoods couldn't find Uganda on a map.

There are stories all the time about women who are kidnapped, raped, beaten, and left for dead in the woods while they were running in the dark. I run at 5:30 or 6am almost every day. I have never worried about someone jumping out at me while I'm running. I sometimes wonder what I would do if it happened but I'm typically thinking about my cadence and where my foot is landing.

I'm a woman. A tall one, but still a woman. I run in all black in the dark. I feel like a bit of a badass when I'm flying through neighborhoods in my Vibram FiveFingers. I do BodyCombat as a cross-training exercise but I doubt I'd ever be able to combat someone if they came at me. I'm strong but not that strong. I could run away but I'm not really that fast. I'm just a runner... a runner who is privileged enough to run in a safe neighborhood. It's a God thing, I know that. I thank Him every morning for the beautiful moon and the gorgeous sunrise... for the trees and the quiet spaces I get to softly run through.

I'm a woman. I feel safe when I leave my home. I'm a runner. I'm blessed. I'm safe.

But how can I help other women feel safe where they live? Even if it's unsafe. I'll have to work that out on my next run.

by Stef Woods, City Girl Blogs

When I saw a Tweet from my friend, Melanie, come into my feed, I stared at my laptop screen with an odd expression on my face. To paraphrase, the Tweet said:

Hey @citygirlblogs, I think my hair is even shorter than yours now!

I exhaled before I responded: Yes, but yours was a choice :)

See, I had cancer. I was known for my long, beautiful red hair. My hair was a huge part of my identity and my brand.

I shaved my head before six rounds of chemotherapy caused me to lose all my hair. As much as I missed my long, red locks, I wore a wig only a handful of times. I didn’t mind being bald; I actually kind of liked it! I felt confident without hair and as sexy as I could in the midst of six months of treatment and the accompanying side effects.

To most people, though, my comfort with my baldness made them uncomfortable. My baldness forced others to have to think about cancer and their own mortality. I get how scary that can be for some.

When my hair started growing in, I was able to embrace the buzz cut. I felt like a rocker chick! Now that my hair is short, though, I have to fake being confident about my appearance. Post-chemotherapy hair grows at half the speed that normal hair does, and it doesn’t grow evenly. In addition, the chemicals in chemotherapy commonly cause hair to curl. I spend more time and money now to maintain my short hair than I did when I had long hair.

Despite the fact that I’ve told my friends and written about the fact that I can’t talk about my hair, I inevitably receive several comments a day about it. People view hair as a sign of vitality and beauty. I view my short hair as a constant reminder of what cancer took from me.

"Oh, but it will grow back!” well-intentioned friends comment.
“In a minimum of three years,” I reply.
“It’s so thick now!” they say.
“It was thick before,” I respond.
“I know you don’t like short hair,” they try to reason.
“I like short hair on others. I’ve never liked short hair on me. And, this wasn’t a choice!” I remind them.

A study of breast-cancer patients revealed that 30% suffer from depression and 20% suffer from body image issues -- post-treatment. I’m thankfully not depressed, but I am honest and open about my feelings. It will take a long time to look in the mirror and like what I see. Until then, I’ll fake it until I can make it. I won’t let my displeasure at my post-treatment appearance stop me from dating, enjoying time with my friends or smiling at the cameras at an event. I don’t have a choice as to the length of my hair. I do have a choice as to how I live my life.

To some, that might be perceived as confidence or sex appeal. To me, that’s living my life to the best of my abilities.

--

Stef Woods is a university professor, sexuality educator, writer, former practicing attorney, and breast cancer survivor and advocate. She writes about relationships, sexuality, dating, health advocacy and cancer on her website, City Girl's Blog. Follow her at Twitter @citygirlblogs.

Photos by Kristina Hopper (top left) and Naiffer Romero (bottom right).

Have you ever seen The Holiday where Arthur Abbott tells Iris Simpkins that she has to be the leading lady of her own life, not the best friend? When he said that, he meant that we have to be confident in who we are because the best friend never gets the guy or the glory.

As girls, we've been programmed that sexy is really skinny bodies, long silky hair, flawless skin, and always looking our best. Many of us grew up believing that we would get a man by being sexy. My mom was the type to combat those things and although she never leaves the house without her hair and makeup done (and would never leave in her pajamas like so many of us do), she taught my sister and I that although we were beautiful, a smart, confident, sassy woman was the type to attract a man. For many reasons, my view changed and to me, being sexy was the only way to get a man.

I've always had a hard time with attracting a man who didn't need fixing. Either he was broke, or broken, or just didn't have his life together. I asked my mom what she thought I should do. I was shocked at her response. "Dress to the nines every day & you'll find one who has a better job and a better life in front of him." If you know me, you know that I don't 'dress to the nines' and never will. I look presentable but wearing heels and a skirt doesn't seem like an appropriate way for me to attract a man and it doesn't fit my personality at all.

Over the last 3 months I've changed my look twice. I had long blond hair halfway down my back for what seems like forever until... my aunt (a hairstylist from LA) cut it into a long pixie cut. Then I got a wild hair that I should cut it shorter and color it dark brown and did that right before the new year. There's a story here.

Previously, all of my boyfriends loved long blonde hair. They made sure to comment on it and said that I looked sexy with it. I've cut my hair a few times over the years and one of my exes saw me with short hair and wondered out loud if I had switched teams. I liked having long hair but the reasoning was wrong. Guys thought it was sexy. Which meant they thought I was sexy. I placed how I felt about myself in their hands. Their undeserving hands. The problem was... very few of my boyfriends gave me enough credit for being anything more than a pretty face with pretty hair. Not one of them believed I had the strength and confidence to run my own business. As I said before, a lot of events caused me to have so little confidence in myself and I came to realize that if I didn't have confidence in myself, why would anyone else?

As I grew my hair out, I got complacent. I stopped caring about how I wore it. I even started making jeans and a t-shirt more of a staple instead of bothering to put a little time into how I looked. Many people thought I was in my early to mid-20's when I really wanted them to believe I was a successful 'old enough' business owner. The last straw was when two different people at the same conference asked me if I was there doing a college paper. My aunt cut my hair off the following weekend.

Taking a big chance and finding that I loved it, I was told by a friend that I went from cute to hot in one haircut. She hadn't realized how much I had just looked cute and young until I cut it all off. I had put a lot of my sexiness in my hair and found out that it was my confidence that made me sexy, not my hair.

When I realized that short hair changed where I had my confidence, I decided to go a step further and cut it shorter and go dark. Although everyone said they liked it, I was really nervous. Getting rid of something that felt like a security blanket and going dark (which was the opposite of what every guy told me they liked), I had to pull my confidence out of somewhere else.

Shortly after both haircuts, a guy friend of mine let me know that as much as he loved both of my new hairstyles, he loved the fact that I had the confidence to take the leap. His words: Most women hold onto their hair because they don't like change or are worried it won't look good. You doing this shows that you have the guts to do anything.

After only 10 days of being a short-haired brunette, I feel like it's time for me to be a leader and that I've finally got the look to make that happen. My friend Lisa Helfert, a fantastic photographer, loved my vintage look and asked if she could do some photos of me with vintage lighting. The picture seen to the left is what she ended up with. A friend called it vintage glam. This one picture showed me that my personality can come through with serious confidence and an air of leadership without hiding behind my hair. It shows me that I'm a leader and that I have to walk into 2012 with that leadership quality. It's time.

I'm 31, a successful entrepreneur, and I'm taking the world by storm... with short, dark brown hair. Now I'm not sure if the world is ready for me.