Girls, women, ladies, let us real talk about how it is exactly that you can be a lady in this century. Forget notions of corsets, and walking around with books precariously balanced on your head, or learning how important it is to have the children dressed and ready by the time their father gets home. A modern lady is beyond just a life of domestication.
Step 1. Get Your Own S**t Together
This isn't 1895. You don't need a man to pay your bills, drive your wagon, hunt for you, or purchase property for you. This is 2015, soon to be 2016. Go get your own education, find something you are passionate about, have your own job and 401K plan, buy your own house, build your own empire, and begin to understand and know what you want out of life. Marriage and a couple of kids will not solve all your problems or provide you with a completely sustainable future the way it may have been impressed upon women of the past. You are a person with your own wants, needs, and desires, and if you haven't spent any time attending to those, the latter will not suddenly commpletely fulfil your every need. Have something of your own, own something, be somebody other than someone's wife or mother.
Step 2: Know Your Worth
A lady knows she is to be loved, cherished, treated with kindness, and most of all with the utmost respect. In order to do that, you must give what you want to recieve. If your MO is being the biggest B, and stomping all over people, and creating drama, don't then be suprised when people hate you or disrespect you. Each of us is a worthy human being, but that worthiness is always something that is to be cultivated and grown over time. It starts with respecting yourself, then others, and then you can recieve what you put out into the world. Do not accept anyone who treats you poorly. It is not just that person who is at fault, it is you for continuing to think or believe that you deserve to be treated in such a manner by keeping that person or those people in your life.
Step 3: Take Care of Yourself
You cannot take care of someone else if you cannot even take care of yourself. Your body is a temple, and a singular one at that. Get enough sleep, brush and floss, exercise, eat healthy, go to the doctor/dentist regularly, laugh, cry, and live to your fullest potential.
Step 4: Be on your best behavior
This has nothing to do with knowing what fork to use. I'm sure that's important to someone, somewhere in a castle, but the reality is, you just need to know and practice good manners. If someone cooks a meal for you, say thank you. If a guy with some heavy boxes is approaching the door, hold the door open for HIM, when you recieve a gift, write an actual paper to pen thank you note. Kindess and decency never get old and do not go unappreciated.
Step 5: Put Effort Into Yourself
Ladies, I don't care how much you want to try to convince me that a sack-o-sweats is an outfit good for all day every day, but I can assure you, its not. If you have no sense of fashion whatsoever, if you wash your face, brush or style your hair some kind of way even if its just in a pony tail, put on clean unwrinkled, fitting clothes, and some sort of decent shoe that doesn't have holes or stains, at the bare minimum, you've put yourself together. Don't show up in public with your hair in curlers, or crust in your eyes, or in a shirt with bleach stains. Come on! Looking good has nothing to do with how wealthy you are or what stylist you can afford to use. Wearing clothes that fit, being clean and showered, walking with proper posture...those are things that go far beyond spending 1,000 on a bag you can only wear once before its out of style. You are better than being a slob and accepting that as a way of life. 
Step 6: Know something about something
Read an actual book or three. I get that you may need to Google what "deleterious" means, or you may not remember what to use the pythagorean theorem for, but just because you graduated from some place, doesn't mean you should ever stop learning, and more importantly, wanting to know more about the world. Life is full of teachable moments, and things to discover if only you'd spend more time off the electronics, and more time experiencing it and trying to discover its secrets. You don't need to get a second degree, but knowing some interesting knowledge about a subject or two makes you more of an intelligent engaged human being. Unlike ladies of the past, you have more opportunities than most to be more than some superficial air head. Don't just be a beauty, have the brains to back it up.
Step 7: Understand your sexuality
Gasp! You can have sex. You want it, you feel you're ready for it, go and have it. I'm not saying just with anybody anywhere that offers, don't be stupid. Have protected safe sex, but don't be afraid of your body, of your own desires, of what makes you feel good in the bedroom. Women are often told to feel shameful about this, to hate themselves for wanting to have sex or hide this fact, but again, this is not 1895. Sex is no longer hidden away in some dark closet, it's out there. Practice safe sex always, follow your instincts and all that jazz, but don't be afraid of it or how it makes you feel. It's just sex and yes, by God, you have a right to enjoy it!
Step 8: Respect other women
The Real Housewives of wherever should not be your guide on how to treat other women. Ladies are faced with a lot of negativity in this world, and you shouldn't assign yourself to be a part of the problem, rather than the solution. Stop calling other women b------s, stop talking down to yourself, stop telling your daughters and young ladies that they are fat, or not smart enough, or can't be whatever they want to be. Pay other women compliments regularly, don't engage in gossip, and pave the way for future ladies to be able to rise up and above low expectations in life.
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