Woman
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011It’s raining in the desert today. The skies have been grey and wet for 2 solid days now, I could not be more pleased. @mother nature- BRING IT ON!
I’m recovering from last weeks massive fundraiser at the kids’ school and a few other things. These grey days have been perfect for curling up on the couch…which of course leads to massive amounts of deep reflection (you to?!). I read a book yesterday that caused a serious rift in my glorification of the 1950′s & 60′s. Its called Cotton Queen by Pamela Morsi, and it was a light piece of fiction- easy to read and a story that isn’t quite as predictable as I thought it would be.
I am not naive to the plight of women through the centuries, I took the prerequisite Women’s studies classes that all enlightened and educated women take in college. I was fascinated with Women’s suffrage at the tender age of 17 and wrote a history report all about the movement and the key players. While I intellectually understood a lot of freedoms that were not available to women- even in to the 1970′s and 80′s, this book helped me to feel it, for the first time.
The thought of living through the 60′s feels like a horror movie to me. I want to kiss the ground of every woman who walked before me and paved the way for me to enjoy the freedom to: educate myself at some of the best schools; to climb as high as I am willing to on the corporate ladder; to raise my children how I know to be best without the ramification of a narrow social view.
My grandmother was a divorced mother of 6 (!!!) in the early 1960′s, I can only imagine the social isolation she must have felt and the lack of social structures to help her both care for her children and feed them. She managed to come out on top, though no doubt it was a hard battle.
My mother became a single mom of two little girls at a tender age and at the beginning of the 1980′s. Women were just starting to be offered the same jobs as men at that point, but the pay was no where near equatable. I can only imagine the fear in her heart as she had to decide what to do to support my sister and I…the isolation that comes from being a single mom when all your contemporaries are young college co-eds.
I am glad that our mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers paved the way…I hope in my own way I too can make the world a better place for my daughters. I am grateful that they will have choices; but with those choices comes a great responsibility. I hope they will grow to be strong, capable, and compassionate women.





















