Tag: we are our mothers' daughters

“Magazines and newspapers warned that women were endangering their childbearing capabilities with so much activity, making themselves unattractive by developing their muscles, and sacrificing their femininity to the playing field.” From We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters by Cokie Roberts

This one made me laugh. I honestly don’t think anyone believes that is true if they unpack it, but it is a pervasive idea. Where does it come from?

When I was working at Knott’s Berry Farm as a stagehand in the 90’s, I ran into this myself. We were loading in a small show and there was no vehicle access to the stage area once the park was open, so we had to hand cart the equipment and road cases carefully through the amusement park crowd to the stage area.

Once we got there, we lifted the cases onto the stage. As I went to one side of a case, my partner readied at the opposite end, we got down, lifted with our legs, and pushed the case onto the stage to be unloaded. An older man on our crew, a nice guy, one I’d consider a friend, pulled me aside and said he worried about me lifting heavy equipment. “It’s not good for you. You might hurt yourself and you probably want to have children someday.” I laughed at the absurdity of the idea and went to unload the next cart. He seemed genuinely hurt that I wouldn’t take him seriously.

Think about history, long term, way back. If it were not good for women to be strong and athletic because they would be unattractive and/or unable to bear children, how did have humanity survive to evolve before technology made it easier for people to live? In the ancient past, the strong and healthy survived the trials of life, including childbirth.

As society evolved and technology increased, humans began to see idleness as beautiful, and not only in women. Those with pale skin from staying out of the fields and stream, those that had soft hands from a lack of work, those that had slim, delicate frames and beautiful clothing showed how rich they were. They were the ones in charge of things, the overseers, and the masters of the world. And guess what? Those people had trouble bearing children and begetting them.

It’s fascinating how things change. Today, thirty years after my interaction with a co-worker, women are encouraged to be strong and fit, athletic, and self-sufficient more and more often. Intelligent men (and women) know they want a partner in this world (whether they want to have children or not) and they look for one that equals them in energy, intelligence, or fortitude. These days it seems we are starting to re-learn that a good partner is an independent, strong and healthy one, physically and mentally.

The comment from my co-worker, and from the quote, came from a place of fear, not concern. Those in power over others, don’t want to lose it. If a person is strong enough to make it on their own, they don’t need a partner, they want one. And that puts us in a unique position that our ancestors (ancient and otherwise) never had.

To read more, go back to my original post on this book, “We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters: New Read.”

“Until a woman is elected president, girls growing up in this country will see limits on what they can accomplish.”
From We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters by Cokie Roberts

Now there’s a statement I could not disagree with more.

Growing up, I would see positions, careers, jobs, and activities I thought would be interesting, fun, or fulfilling, not who was doing them.

My father drove a delivery truck and I thought that would be a fun job. When we were small he would arrive to pick us up after school and tell stories about what was inside. He was hauling Polar Bears, that’s why the truck was white. And he’d hold kids up to the small windows to see. I never thought, “Well, Dad is a male, he has a penis, so I can’t do this job.”

My mother worked at the bank and I knew that wasn’t a job I would want to to do because it was indoors and she had to dress up every day, but I always admired how hard she worked at that job. I felt that what she did was important, just not for me.

A boyfriend in high school was determined to be a fighter pilot for the Air Force. My Grandfather took me to air shows where we watched them fly low over the airfield. I considered what it would be like to fly these planes and be the hero that we all thought those people were. Never once did I think I could not do it myself because I was female.

Out of high school and into university, I studied theater arts, specifically set design. Through the process I learned to operate computer programs, build, and paint. I eventually learned to be a lighting technician and board operator. Small theaters require that everyone lend a hand everywhere. At no point did I look around me and think, “Wow. Everyone around me has a penis and I don’t. I must be in the wrong place.”

Wouldn’t it be more practical to change the way we look at the world around us, and not consider that the physical appearance of a person doing the thing? What if we looked at what they were doing instead and thought, “You know that looks like something I would like to do.” And then pursued it to the best of our ability?

I realize that women have been excluded from large parts of the world economy and political arenas for generations. I also realize that in the past there has been reasons for that. But many of those legitimate reasons are being nullified. Technology has made being large and strong less relevant. As a society, we don’t need the high birthrate to replace those who die in childbirth. People live longer, healthier lives. Good birth control gives women the ability to control the number of children they have, if any at all.

And there is so much more. Men’s lives are changing for the same reasons and new roles are opening up to them. Society is changing. Relationship models are changing. Everything is changing so rapidly that it’s hard to keep up.

This book is reminding me of that. It was written twenty years ago, by a woman slightly younger than my grandmothers, and one that grew up in and lived an entirely different lifestyle. Her perspective is so different that it’s hard to understand from here.

To read more, go back to my original post on this book, “We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters: New Read.”