Reasons Why

Tags

choices, feminism, lifestyle, Women's issues

This appeared on Facebook and I put it up on my wall with the caption: “Is this what parenthood does to a person! If so, I’m glad I escaped!”

While there weren’t many replies, one caught my interest and got me to thinking about what might lie behind the statement.

While it may have been meant innocently enough, the comment was “no this is not your normal situation and you did miss a lot.”

I took that, however meant, as a defensive lob, one meant to suggest that parenting is a great thing and I was much the poorer for having “missed” it.

Of course, beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.

I chalked it up as another of those, subtle or not so subtle put-downs by those with children of those of us without. The other one that I remembered vividly was a discussion about corporal punishment by parents (or caregivers) and the suggestion that I was unfit to comment, “since as I recall, you didn’t have children did you?”

I think I know where the defensiveness and consequent “I’m really better than you because you don’t have children” comes from

Dial back the time machine to the late 60’s when I graduated from high school. The sexes were still pretty much set in stone. I knew that a number of my classmates would probably be married within a year or so, but I was off to college. It was the beginning of that “sweet spot” in time–the convergence of the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the hippie movement, and the feminist movement. The Vietnam anti-war movement began in the mid-sixties and continued and escalated during the late 60’s and early 70’s. We marched on campuses, got tear-gassed, shut down campuses. Some campuses were more volatile than others, yet we all found ourselves involved in “teach-ins”  (where I first learned of the play Lysistrata by Aristophanes). 

Women were a big part of the movement but often relegated to second-class status behind the men. This mimicked that of the Civil Rights Movement. Rosa Parks did not suddenly pop up one day on a bus in Montgomery Alabama, but had long been a worker in the field. She was of course kept much in the background in terms of leadership as were other African-American women of the day.

The Hippie movement, also a product of the 60’s was most renowned  for Haight-Asbury and Woodstock, but it signaled the advent of free-love, birth-control, and a defining break with the past and all it’s traditional values. The Hippies were also vehemently anti-war. The Beatles, most notably John Lennon became a major force for peace with “Imagine”.

Women in this movement two were pushed to the rear, often treated as secretaries and much needed lovers for the important work being done by the men in the “awakening”.  Angela Davis and others fought back.

Women looked to each other during this period and Betty Freidan, Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem,  Kate Millet, Shirley Chisholm, and Bella Abzug were the emerging role models for women like myself who were just starting to look higher than the secretarial typewriter for our future. We read with relish The Feminine Mystique, and Sexual Politics. Later, immersed in the Church, I would cling to In Memory of Her and She Who Is, as the patriarchal stereotypes of the bible began to be dismantled by women of faith but also biblical expertise. Women like  Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Elizabeth Johnson became household names.

I was in that first wave of women admitted in law school in large numbers. We leaned on each other, we learned, and we excelled. Because we were steeped in the injustices of the past, we were angry, defensive, and could spot a “sexist pig” at twenty paces. Offering to hold a door for us was likely to be met with a angry look, and a statement like, “I am more than capable of opening my own door, thank you.”

Plenty of men retreated before us “ball-busting bitches” and sought more traditional women to welcome them home at night and bear their children.

That is the world out of which I emerged into my late 20’s, a time when most women start to realize that if parenthood is on their agenda, one best get busy.

As a look back at the cadre of young women I worked along side of I can recall what we talked about and how we felt quite vividly. We were in our late twenties, still working more often with men than with other women. Most judges were still male, most prosecutors, most defense attorneys, most cops. We were not insignificant, but we were far from a majority. Mostly we were treated with fairness, although there was a lot of what today would be unacceptable sexual harassment. To us it was business as usual. We slipped the grasp of unwanted advances (mostly from judges who somehow thought that being a judge’s mistress must be our dream????), and commanded salaries the likes of which our hardworking fathers (mothers of course didn’t even come close) had never attained in their working lifetimes.

Among those of us who were single, (most of us) the issue of children inevitably comes up. And of course it came up more regularly for single women than married, since we were single mostly by choice. Men were wonderful, but unnecessary as a financial crutch so mostly we were looking to take our time. I don’t count myself as being usual in having had good half dozen serious affairs, and my share of brief flings. There was no reason not to.

As best I can tell, we split about 50-50 on the child thing. About half arranged by any number of methods to get pregnant and have a child with no intent to have the father play any significant role in the raising of the child. The other half, myself included, opted out.

I can say that during my now more than sixty-four years, I spent roughly eight months considering the idea seriously, but I have to say it probably had more to do with the man I was seeing at the time than on the biological clock ticking. I cannot say what was the key reason I chose not to have children, only that it was a combination of over-population around the globe, the desire not to have my own free-wheeling lifestyle disrupted, a serious question whether I would be a “good” parent–having no real role model, and some lack of “mothering” instincts, that I felt should be stronger than they were.

Looking back, I recognize that children bring a certain joy, apparently some sense of accomplishment (though again why escapes me pretty much), and I think some security? about the future that is perceived rather than necessarily experienced. It seems to feed some egos, though not all from what I have seen. I think children are marvelous creatures, and I think being good at parenting is a very hard thing, a thing most people take for granted and therefore don’t do a very good job at. I’m glad I didn’t do it, but I am in awe of some people I know who have.

I definitely think it ought to be way harder to qualify to be a parent. It’s amazing to me that so many people turn out as well as they do given their crummy experience with parents. I wonder how amazing this world might be if so many people didn’t have to spend so much time overcoming their poor upbringing.

At one time, we in the feminist movement disliked our sisters who chose the traditional roles. We thought they made it hard for those of us who wanted to be treated equally in jobs, advancement and pay. I think that time has long past. We, or at least I, recognize that the ultimate freedom is to chose the life you wish, and it is certainly an honorable and important choice to choose parenting.

The opposite is also true. To not choose parenting can be smart, noble, and a recognition that it is a special profession, one not suited to everyone, and not simple the thing “most everyone can do”. It is not an accomplishment, but a sacred responsibility one should take on with eyes wide open.

I think it all points to the fact, that while all of us may have had the same “historical” background, we responded to it differently. It imprinted on us quite dis similarly and we apparently made different judgements about it. That is what makes us human I suspect and why we thrive overall. If Aristotle was right that there is a set of absolute moral precepts, we will, it seems, go on arguing forever about just what they are.

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It Wasn’t THAT Long Ago. . . .

Tags

abortion, contraception, fundamentalism, GOP, Hobby Lobby, Women's issues

A little history seems in order.

Okay, so before we start, let’s get this straight. This is not an anti-male diatribe, much as you may think it is. There are damn well plenty of stupid women out there who have drunk the kool-aid and think women’s place is in the home, tending the kitchen, children and pets, in that order. The trouble is, the women who tell you that are ANYTHING BUT stay-at-homers themselves and even if they are, they are writing blogs, books, and preachin’ on social media that YOU should not be like them, but rather like the fantasy women they envision–pampered, protected, cared for, and wiper of runny noses all wearing that crisp peter pan-collared cotton frock and perfectly shined respectable two-inch pumps and pushing the vacuum with a free hand.

Whew. . . .

No this is against paternalism and all its ugly underbelly of psychological signals that tell the female gender that they are all they can be just by primping in front of the mirror and making very sure that that eyeliner is on straight and that lipstick is the latest fashion color of the season.

Ya see, I grew up in that tween place, on the cusp, able to see both shores as it were.

Women got the vote in 1920. My mother was born in ’26, so she grew up having it, though I must say, she pretty much used is as far as I can tell, as her husbands explained to her was right and good. But her mother came into her adulthood without it, my grandmother was born in ’01, so it impacted her most. I knew these women for whom the vote was a “new” thing,  but grew up knowing that voting was no different for me than for any guy I knew.

It was not until the 60’s, during the general period of awakening that lots of minorities were going through, least of all white males who were being conscripted to be the fodder in another war, but one this time that seemed to merit no one’s patriotic fervor, that we women began to learn of our own deeper oppression. We began to learn that it was not okay that our bodies were not our own to control, that we were not by “nature” relegated to certain types of jobs, and paid less in others simply because we were women.

We learned that there was much more to do in this journey to equality.

And we secured our right to control our bodies–in other words–to make mistakes just like men do with theirs.

And we worked hard to break through glass ceilings that prevented us from being fighter pilots, (if that’s what we wanted), neurosurgeons, police officers, firefighters,  and corporate CEO’s. And then we discovered that even when we got the jobs we didn’t get the pay, and we began that fight too.

Always with a certain segment of scared men and the women they controlled telling us that we were going against God, country, and well, nature itself.

Always with those who believed that as we gained our power to control our lives, theirs would somehow be diminished. Sharing is a hard lesson to learn.

They argued of course that women would become “just like men”, or worse, punish men in some Amazonian-driven lust for power themselves.

They argued that we would cry during tense negotiations with a Khrushchev and rain down upon America the nuclear holocaust that permeated the Cold War era.

They called us atheistic feminists and the spittle trickled down their chins, catching and rerouting through grizzled stubble, that they wiped away with grubby fingers still clutching ragged signs with misspelled words echoing their hate: Back to the kitchen you sluts!

But while these battles went on quietly across America with thousands of dedicated women, all the clamor died down, and life didn’t change a whole lot. We figured we were still on the journey, but life as we know it hadn’t stopped, and someday we would reach our goal of full integration and equality in America. Most of us thrived in a world that seemed increasingly equal to us.

And then along came the “IMMORAL MINORITY”  waving their bibles, and explaining to middle-aged white men who had failed in the great American dream to be great achievers, that women were the problem and not corporate greed. Women were and always were the problem ever since that bitch picked that apple off that tree and seduced God’s great creation Adam into sinning. Women were the problem.

And as the rich got richer and the poor got poorer and the great middle started to age and find that damn they weren’t much better off than their parents, some thing had to give. Corporate America became adept at focusing the blame on minorities, takers all. Suddenly, feminism became a dirty word again. Our enemies are mostly aging white men who feel left behind (damn that Rapture, where are you?). The feel and it’s certainly palpable at this point, emasculated by articulate, educated women.

Ask me about it. I belong to a forum of my old high school, and my wars always end up being against these male types (one of which actually said that he ended up calling me names because “I drove him to it.”), and women who believe that women were created to serve me according to their fine uneducated reading of certain pseudo-Pauline texts.  And invariably they block me, so I can read the their comments and they don’t have to respond to mine. Except that there are men on the forum who are just as liberal as I am, just as knowledgeable, and just as “in-your-face”, and they don’t get blocked. Why? Because men can argue with men, but women must be very careful to be properly respectful lest they be branded as “stupid” and “a troll” and “self-defined intellectual”. (I was once told that educated people were “pissants” all, by one tiny-penised patriarchal dope.)

So along comes Hobby Lobby and it’s claim that its corporate religiosity is being assaulted by requiring it “pay” for certain contraceptive methods it in its utter stupidity deems abortifacients, and the Feds have no right to make them offer same to their employees. There is so much wrong here that it’s sick. First, HL provided all these methods before they were picked as the “plaintiff” and then told, “damn, guys, you offer this stuff already!” Hobby Lobby owner Green claims “shit, I have no idea”. Hobby Lobby gets I would guess 80% of its inventory from China, a nation that makes abortion a national policy and until recently required it after one child. Hobby Lobby has a 401K retirement benefits package which includes owning shares of various big pharma companies which, you guessed it, manufacture all the abortifacients that HL moans about.

So the SCROTUS decided that corporate religious well-being trumps women’s rights to good health. Along with that, they decided that there can be no buffer zone between women trying to enter clinics that offer contraceptive care along with abortions and those who want to scream at them demanding that they “think again”.  Women seeking treatment at a PPH clinic must be within “spittin’ distance” of those who seek to turn them away.

Across America, Republican led legislatures make it hard if not impossible for poor women to get reproductive care of any kind by loading down clinics with regulations (aren’t Republicans against business regulation as a matter of principle?) that are so burdensome that they have to close.

And all this in the name of NOT ABORTING. When all of these restrictions do exactly the opposite.

Republicans in Congress vote down equal pay for women.

There is a line.

It has now been crossed.

We will not go back.

Vote in 2014 as if you life depends on it, because control of it is surely at stake.

 

 

 

 

Hell of a Way to Start a Month

Tags

Asian food, Black History Month, Bushes, Egypt, Fox News, gay rights, Glenn Beck, GOP, Media, Recipes, salad, Sarah Palin, Sojourner Truth, teabaggers

It’s tomorrow. That stupid hauling out of an innocent but essentially stupid animal. Go ahead, subject him to lights, camera, and gawking humans.

Ask him if he saw his shadow. Hell, he doesn’t know what a shadow is. And I’ve yet to see the correlation between his shadow and atmospheric conditions across the vastness of North America.

We have enough trouble dealing with the massive slap in the face we are getting this afternoon in the form of a blizzard. (Actually we might get by with no more than six little inches, so I’m feeling frisky.)

Anyway, this is the last month of winter by my reckoning, and I’m intelligent enough not to go around asking woodland critters their opinion.

So, welcome to February. It’s gotta be all uphill from here!

***

Picked this up from the Salon. It was just too good not to include.

***

Fox Crap is reporting very little about what’s happening in Egypt. They are playing it as a bunch of Islamists bent on setting up an Al Qaeda-friendly government. Not truthful of course, but as the next article makes it quite clear, this is exactly what Fox does so very deliberately.

Andrew Sullivan points out that what Fox Crap does is not just misinforming their viewers, but is deliberately done that way. No other way to explain Beckian insanity, and the deliberate attempt to encourage their followers that they cannot trust anyone else to give them truth. This is some sick stuff.

***

In case you missed it, Jon Stewart did a hysterical Sarah Palin gotcha. You remember her and her WTF little drivel? Well, Stewart, ala Fox Crap, or more specifically ala Beckian conspiracy theory, makes out a very convincing case that our Sarah is in reality a Russian spy. The Salon has it.

***

Like Daddy, like daughter? Nope. Dubya’s daughter, one of them at least (the brunette?) I think named after grandmother Babs, has come out publicly in favor of same-sex marriage. In this case, the apple falls far from the tree, or acorn, or corn cob. Whatever, you get the idea.

***

I haven’t posted a recipe in a long time. I saw this and it looked like it might be good. An Asian Coleslaw made with that broccoli slaw in the bags at the supermarket. Simple ingredients.

***

Almost forgot. February is Black History Month. Here isa very nice speech given by Sojourner Truth. And check out the site, it’s one I’ve never seen and it looks like a good one! History buffs!

***

See, it’s smart to not walk on frozen ponds if you are unsure. CRACK! Massachusetts Scott Brown’s dalliance with the TeaBuggers is apparently over. The NRT (National Republican Trust) PAC, who backed his election with money galore, has given word it will do its level best to unseat him in the next election. His crime? Not voting NO to every Democratic legislative bill. That was his duty according to NRT mouthpiece Scott Wheeler. Oh how quickly it all unravels. *SNICKER*

In other states, teabugger organizations are poised to get rid of Olympia Snowe, Orin Hatch, and Richard Lugar. These are all Senators, like Brown. What the dim lights fail to get is that they lost almost all of these Senatorial campaigns. Their following is too small to win anything but small congressional districts where like-minded narrow minds have gathered to live in covens of irrationality. Duh.

***

Snoring Dog Studio, great friend of AFeatherAdrift, has a serious confession to make. I’m not saying, but I was utterly shocked. From a purist like me, well, I’m not sure we can remain friends. Perhaps we can, but I can’t let her in the house. They neighbors would be aghast. Bring Sno Balls as an offering. I could be persuaded.

***

I gotta get busy with cooking.

What’s on the stove: fajitas!

***

Related Articles

• The Snowe conundrum (dailykos.com)
• “Tea Party plans challenge for Lugar” and related posts (prairiepundit.blogspot.com)
• Scott Brown Will Get Republican Primary Challenge, Ex-Backer Vows (huffingtonpost.com)

Oh Martha, I Barely Knew You

Tags

bible, biblical studies, Inspirational, Jesus, Luke, Martha and Mary

I’ve been thinking about Martha and Mary recently. It was the Gospel reading Sunday past, but I’d been thinking before then. The actual story is quite short. Located at Lk 10:38-42, I will quote it in full.

Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

There are many treatments of this periscope, most of them refer to the fact that Martha is concerned about the realities of this life, while Mary recognizes Jesus as the Son of God, and wishes to learn from the Master. Clearly this is the “better part.” God first, dishes second.

But thanks to Mompriest  at Seeking Authentic Voice and Elizabeth Kaeton at Telling Secrets, who both wrote on this story, I’ve learned a much deeper meaning. Even more so, what follows is informed by Ebeling’s, Women’s Lives in Biblical Times, and the rector of Christ Episcopal Church, +Martha. And it is mostly from that perspective that I wish to write today.

Ebeling informs us that women in biblical times were seldom autonomous beings. The system of patrimony dictated that women went to live in the villages and homes of their husbands and were under the authority of the husband and his father or elder brother if alive. Women seldom inherited property–all went to any male progeny.

So at the start we are faced with a strange fact. The house here is defined as Martha’s. Yet, Martha is the sister of Lazarus, and presumably Lazarus is alive. A couple of points. In John’s Gospel, this same Lazarus does die, but is raised some days after his burial.(John 11:41-44)  He is not the same Lazarus who is mentioned in Luke 16:19-31, who had conversation with the rich man in the afterlife, outside hell.

We know from the Lazarus rising story that the siblings lived in Bethany, a village about 1.5 miles from Jerusalem, and indeed the modern day site of  al-Eizariya means Tomb of Lazarus. So it appears that at this visit by Jesus, Lazarus was still living in the home.

This makes it curious that the home is denoted as Martha’s, since clearly, tradition would have made it Lazarus’s. This may have been simply a literary change to fit the point Luke wished to make.

More importantly, the cultural norms would never permit a woman to invite any man to her home period. And it is this which I had never considered before. So indeed it was Martha who was first stepping way out in uncharted territory by being so bold. One can imagine other people of the village witnessing her standing forth at the door and beckoning Jesus into the home. How they must have talked!

Tradition would also dictate that Martha was responsible for the cooking and other home care tasks. While Lazarus might have been the one to offer a pallet for Jesus to sit upon (chairs were not known I don’t believe in small village homes), it would have been the women’s duty to supply water for washing and the food.

Anyone who reads the bible regularly would realize that a major aspect of Jesus’ ministry was his table hospitality, his radical departure from what was considered right and even in a sense legal. One did not dine with the unclean and certainly not with sinners. He pushed the limits of hospitality to include all.

So it is somewhat disconcerting when he downplays Martha’s efforts. After all, she has courageously seen him for who he is, and ignored all propriety in inviting him forth. Yet he gives no recognition to her, nor does he validate her dedication to good hospitality in making her guests comfortable. No doubt Jesus was accompanied by his disciples (more strange men), since “they” is used in the story.

It is clear that Mary too is courageous and not typical of her gender. She boldly sits at the feet of Jesus to listen to his words. I’m not completely clear, but I suspect that women were not allowed to dine in the same room with strangers who were male, but were separated from them. Her actions are indeed bold, and also recognize that this Jesus is not just your average rabbi.

Our priest, Martha, suggested that what Jesus means by his upholding of Mary’s choice is that when we invite Jesus in, we should be prepared to have our lives upset and turned upside down. In order to make this point, poor Martha (from the story) is chastised softly. Hospitality is one thing, and usually most important, but when God’s chosen arrives, all else must stop lest one miss the message being offered.

God disturbs our complacency, much as both Martha and Mary disturbed the social customs of their village and time. Something big is afoot here, they trumpet by their actions. God changes the rules, much as Jesus suggests that Martha and perhaps the men in the room might rethink all this business of who does what, where and when. It’s a new day. The Kingdom has arrived.  And things will never be the same.

Amen.

Women’s Lives in Biblical Times

Tags

archaelogy, bible, biblical studies, Book Reviews, Israel, Jennie R. Eberling, Palestine, patriarchy, Women's history

I seldom, in doing book reviews, venture far from biblical studies or theology. I wouldn’t normally attempt to review a professor of archaeology. But Jennie R. Ebeling, Associate Professor of Archaeology at the University of Evansville, has written a book that beautifully marries the two, and I feel able to assess its worth and impact on the genre at least of biblical studies.

My deepest thanks to Continuum Books, and T & T Clark Publishing for making a copy of her book available to me., Women’s Lives in Biblical Times.

Anyone who has spent any time studying the bible is surely aware that women’s lives are difficult to determine and assess when reference is only given to the bible itself. Let’s face it, the bible was written (so far as we know) by men, about men. Women play at best tangential roles, except in a very few instances. It was a world of patriarchy and thus it is men’s story that is retold.

Professor Ebeling, seeing the usual false portrayal of women in much of fiction dedicated to the time of ancient Palestine, seeks to give us a better picture of women’s lives. In doing so, she has chosen to join a number of disciplines to accomplish her goal. This is no doubt in keeping with much that is going on in science these days. Much is interdisciplinary, giving in the end a fuller and more complete picture of whatever focus is intended.

Her methodology involved the collection of evidence from several sources. First of course, she draws upon the best of biblical scholarship and linguistics to understand as best as can be done today what exactly was being said in regards women. She then adds her own speciality, archaeology to the mix, absorbing the latest conclusions deduced from dig sites throughout the biblical region. She then includes the texts of documents originating from comparative Near Eastern and Egyptian sources, insofar as they treat of women’s lives.

While she determined to speak to the Iron Age I period, (roughly 1200-1000 BCE), she found it useful to include the iconography of Iron Age II (roughly 1000-586) sites in the region. Finally, she added ethnographic studies of  the region dating from the 19th and early 20th century.

Professor Ebeling then merges all this accumulation of facts and evidence and forms charming stories about a mythical woman called Orah, who was born, raised, and died in the highlands of what is now Israel. More specifically, the area is in the vicinity of the ancient holy city of Shiloh, location of the Ark of the Covenant in the times of the Judges, before the Monarchy.

She divides the chapters into the major life events of Orah, and ties them to the seasonal changes in the village. These various harvests and plantings of course were tied to the various ancient festivals.

A warm delightful story is woven from the information now at hand for what life was like in those small villages. Following the “update” on Orah’s life, for instance, as she moves from childhood to womanhood, and then marriage and childbirth, Ebeling adds specific information to substantiate the points of the story.

References to the bible are replete throughout, as are to her other sources. In a word, each “conclusion” about the life of Orah, is well documented with evidence and reasonable inferences thereof.

One comes away with a genuine pride in the value and power of women of that time. Surely they were not accorded much formal power to be sure, but they were essential to the well being of the community and household. Patriarchy ruled, as we said, and when Orah was of marriageable age, she was betrothed and ultimately went to a new village to live in the home of her husband. If her husband’s father was still living, the father was the ultimately authority. Even if her husband’s mother was alive however, authority passed to the son upon the father’s death.

However, within the house, women ran things. They did the balance of the cooking and pottery making and textile manufacture. They cared for the family vegetable plot. They took care of all childbearing duties and probably most funeral arrangements. All this and they still assisted with the plantings and harvestings.

As many already know, Yahweh was the main God to be worshiped, and most women like Orah made pilgrimage to Shiloh at least a couple of times in their short lives. (Few reached beyond 40 years of age.) Still, however, there were many other gods who were worshiped locally and we can be sure that Orah and her family kept a sacred space within the home for fertility god worship.

What I wish to speak principally about here is how valuable Ebeling’s book is the average layperson. While she has no doubt (and it is quite clear to me she has), made a seminal contribution professionally, she offers the layperson valuable information and a “sense” of life in ancient times that proves most valuable to our worship and meditation upon scripture.

I can only relate that this very weekend, listening to the Gospel readings about Jesus and Martha and Mary, the extension of hospitality and the serving of Jesus and his disciples was deeply enriched by what I had learned of what those homes were like and what those “womanly” duties were.

Coupled with a new interpretation offered by our rector as to the story’s meaning, I saw Martha and Mary in new light. Our rector’s interpretation dovetailed simply perfectly into the world that Professor Ebeling created for me of women living in ancient Israel.

I can further sense that I have a new outlook on all that I read whether scriptural or commentary on these times. So clearly do I have this vision of these women, these homes, these relationships, these cares and these seasonal events, that I will never read the bible the same again.

Professor Ebeling is to be commended for her work. While she is modest in her claims, and always indicates when the evidence is thin and she is making extrapolations and from where, one is left with some serious assurance that she has struck near the mark of reality for that time. As she points out, only time and more evidence will clarify and expand our understanding. For now, this is a brilliant step forward.

I recommend you read this if you too desire to understand historical framework of the times in which Jesus walked.

Holding for Ms. Parker

Tags

Dorothy Parker, Literature

I’ve just completed a wonderful Dorothy Parker reader. A marvelous collection of her verses (she would never allow anyone to call them poems), her short stories, and some of her book and play reviews.

Her work is not for the seriously depressed. It seemed she lived in depression or on its edge nearly all her life. Her writing, honest and brutal at all times, surely reflects the agony, bravely covered by wit and humor, that comprised her days on earth.

She at one point created a 35-panel cartoon summing up her entire life. Each panel is usually a single item to sum up the event– three pills symbolize one of her three attempts to end her life. A white stork with a bundle represents her pregnancy; a black stork with bundle indicates her miscarriage. Short, brutal, to the point.

I don’t know why, but I relate to her very much. And, I did so long before I read any of her work. I think the her famous phrase “What fresh hell is this?” in response to phone or door bell was enough for me to know this woman spoke to me.

She, didn’t think much of her own talents. As I said, she wouldn’t allow her verses to be called poetry;  they were simple rhythmic versing, something less than poetry. She attempted but failed to write a book, something she acclaimed as the real mark of a “writer.” She thought Hemingway smashing and James Thurber extraordinary.

She joined causes, was labeled a communist in the 50’s and was blacklisted. She married, divorced, and married again. She seemed a woman of extreme insecurity, bravado, and nicer than one would expect. She hated Hollywood, loved New York, and held her own among the literati of her day. She drank way too much.

Mostly she understood women, at least the women of her time. And though she was of my grandmother’s generation, I learned that the miseries of womanhood in the 50’s and 60’s and 70’s at least were not new, but had been the bane of women in the 20’s and 30’s and 40’s, her salad days.

She writes achingly of women deserted by men, suspicious of men. Whole pages are consumed in prose devoted to “should I call him?” The answer was always no, no, never. He will see you as clinging and needy, and he will run for the hills. Pages of women not saying what they really think, but what is acceptable, what is womanly. Dressing for men, starving for men, drinking, and laughing for men.

Pages of dissecting his every word, going over and over again and again, trying to secure some small kernel of kindness, some hope, something upon which one could plant confidence upon. Something upon which a woman could feel secure, wanted, loved, and no longer lonely.

Dorothy’s private hell of insecurity, loneliness, and feelings of abandonment were there, on each page, stark, raw, ugly at times. Embarrassingly presented in Big Blonde. On and on in dizzying array, she stood unadorned, unprotected, sometimes achingly as pathetic creature.

And she was me, and she was most every girl/woman I knew in the 60’s. All of us pretending to be liberated, strong, independent, carefree. We were never lonely, never needy, never scared. We lived and moved and had our being in the world of men, and we laughed and joked and we swore like sailors. We were one with them, like them, not like them. We lied and we lied, and we went home alone at night.

Except for the one night stands after orgiastic drinking spells at bars and parties. We never asked that dreary question: “When will I see you again?” We knew, even when he mumbled something about, “I’ll give you a call,” as he stumbled out the door and back to his life. We knew. Though for some days, we waited, waited by the phone. Checking it now and again, damning that dial tone for telling us that indeed, the phone was not “out of order.”

We started and stopped enumerable affairs of the heart. Sometimes a few dates, sometimes only one. We never asked why, but we always internalized the problem as with ourselves. We bravely lied to each other that we hadn’t cared about this one or that one. We told ourselves we were not like this, it was not our fault.

But you can’t get past a childhood when it was the way things were. When mother reminded us often, “You have to suffer to be beautiful.” Yet all the suffering in the world wasn’t going to make myopic girls “beautiful” and we knew that. We tried to overcompensate by wearing more eye makeup, but glasses were definitely NOT “in” in the sixties.

And so we, of the liberated generation, were so deeply unliberated inside. Except that unlike Dorothy, we hid it well. I can but imagine how women viewed her work in its time. Did they hate her for laying bare their inner souls? Or did they take secret solace that they were not alone?

So, here’s to you Dorothy, Dot to her friends. Oh how grand and brave you were girl. You were so much better the writer than you thought. You exposed so exquisitely the wrongness of how girl babies are raised and nurtured? You showed us how sad we were. You gave us, oddly, some strength you cannot have been aware of. Strength to change that picture, if only for our own daughters.

But, you were right dear. Never call a man to reclaim what appears to be slipping away. Never, never do it. I did of course, and it never worked well. It always injected even more pain into the wounds of insecurity.

She was right. But not right today–pray not right today.

The Roar That Increasingly Meows

Tags

Betty Friedan, equality, feminism, Germaine Greer, NOW, Women's issues, women's movement, women's rights

As I started to think about the role of women in the world, prompted by the article I will presently link you to, I realized that in the 800 odd posts I’ve made to this blog, nary a one has been dedicated fully to feminism. And that is truly odd.

Does it mean I think that things are so swimmingly good that it no longer needs a voice? Surely not. But I imagine it signifies a certain complacency that things aren’t so terribly bad either. I got what I wanted in other words.

Germaine Greer, icon extraordinaire, has done a lovely job of reminiscing about the past 40+ years and kinda of giving us an update. It is not called the long revolution for nothing. It should be noted that this link comes via 3quarksdaily.

What we see mostly nowadays is a yearly assessment of pay scales, women always falling somewhere short of men for doing the same work.  It seems rather flat these days, with little change over the past few years as best as I can tell. Occasionally there is a report on how women are making inroads into more and more boardrooms and a profession here and there, but frankly little else.

As Greer points out, almost as soon as real progress was made, there were women who claimed that they were unfulfilled in the work place and yearned for a return to the home. Whether that expresses true desire or only the worn out pleas of women expected to do everything and still  smile is perhaps unknowable.

Read the article, which is both long and entirely rewarding, especially on the state of women’s advancement toward equality in Africa, India and Asia. Some things change, and then some change again, or never, it seems.

I look back upon my own life and marvel at what I assumed as a child. I was a girl child, destined, in my mind to be wife and mother, yet feeling oddly estranged from that whole thing most of my preteen and teen life. By graduation, I felt it was not likely for me.

I entered college with the intent of becoming a top rate secretary. How very 50’s of me, wouldn’t you say. A great instructor who shook me up with questions, turned me to a more serious pursuit of education and bigger horizons. Yet, even then I dismissed medicine, flying jets, or any number of otherwise “male” pursuits. I had absorbed  my lessons well.

I admit most assuredly that law school would not have been possible for me had it not been for a ton of great women from Greer to Friedan and hosts of others who broke this ground. In fact, by the time I applied, law schools were trying hard to fulfill quotas for women.

I met many loud and demanding women in law school, and many who were not. Men were contemptuous and they were supportive. After a few years of practice in the law, it all seemed essentially normal. I had won my piece of the equality pie.

Yet, I never perhaps grew out of my upbringing. Emotionally and psychologically that is. And that is a shame. Born to a woman who never read a book that I ever saw, never read the papers except for ads and coupons, was a Republican but had no idea why, and so became a Democrat because her husband told her to, that was my upbringing.

“You gotta suffer to be beautiful,” she used to say, as she sashayed through the house in tight petal pushers and “shell” tops, off to work in the factory, producing the proverbial widget. A hair appointment once a week, nail polish and toe polish required, eye shadow and mascara, and perfume completed the picture.

It never occurred to her to try to move up to management, or to ask for a raise. It never occurred to her that her daughter being a lawyer meant anything other than a new tool in her bag of “top this one” among her friends.

My father was no better, and perhaps hated women deep down. Surely my lawyering was of no import as he told me I had no idea what I was talking about when I tried to explain the vagaries of search and seizure regarding automobiles to him one day. So much for all that money and time expended poring over law books.

I got lucky in the end, marrying a superbly supportive, non-sexist man. My retreat from the law business came not from a desire to return to the hearth, so much as I just hated the damn subject matter. Been there done that. How many hundreds of concealed weapon cases can one have before it ceases to peak an interest? After a few thousand  I reached my nadir.

I’m a typical housewife these days. I do most of the cooking and most of the cleaning, but not all. And the Contrarian does all of the car maintenance and all of the wood work and all of the repair stuff. So we play our roles as expected. Yet, we don’t feel, either one of us, that they are assigned roles, just ones that we are most comfortable in, and well, to a degree, like better than alternatives. I don’t wish his work, and mostly he doesn’t wish mine.

The only place I find resistance to feminism, is in the wacky world of the right wing. In the usual pick and choose fashion, the male believer of the fundamentalist persuasion just loves him some of that Timothy and other  pseudo-Paul doctrine to give him a arrogant step to his walk. The world is still safe, or would be, if men were in charge. (Picture the historical wrongness of that doctrine for a bit!)

And the revolution is long, and it does continue.