Love it, love it, love it! I’m a sorority alumnus who stumbled upon upon your site and I just wanted you to know that you are spot on. To echo azalphadelta below, I was fortunate to have been raised around strong Southern women. There was never any idea that there was anything I couldn’t do because I was a girl. Climbing trees in a Sunday dress, well, that was discouraged, but pretty much anything else was fair game. And this was “back in the day”.
What you have hit upon are the echos of what my generation was hearing loud and clear. There was a hyper emphasis on being outstanding at everything because we were women – we can do anything. And we were expected to. Hold down a grueling professional career; be the greatest, most involved, “best friend” mom ever; volunteer in the community; entertain in your always sparkling clean home; be a perfectly groomed, in shape and enthusiastic lover to your partner. I am woman – hear me roar!
Hear me groan more was more like it. I also saw a world where to be feminine was considered to be behaving in a weak and subservient manner. Where nurturing women who chose to stay home and raise their children were viewed, at best, as second class citizens who couldn’t cut it out in “the real world” and at the worst as some sort of gender traitors. Where other women judged you upon your response to the words, “and what do you do”? Where everyone was over-worked, over-scheduled, over-tired and too afraid to admit it.
We shouldn’t tell little girls that they must be the proper little princess in the pink dress, but neither should we be telling them that to be a proper girl that they have to out boy the boys. Boys are not the standard to which their value as girls should be measured. That’s not equality – it’s insecurity.
So Veronica, you just keep on doing what you’re doing. Follow the path that works for you and never let anyone make you feel bad for not changing your own oil.
Love it, love it, love it! I’m a sorority alumnus who stumbled upon upon your site and I just wanted you to know that you are spot on. To echo azalphadelta below, I was fortunate to have been raised around strong Southern women. There was never any idea that there was anything I couldn’t do because I was a girl. Climbing trees in a Sunday dress, well, that was discouraged, but pretty much anything else was fair game. And this was “back in the day”.
What you have hit upon are the echos of what my generation was hearing loud and clear. There was a hyper emphasis on being outstanding at everything because we were women – we can do anything. And we were expected to. Hold down a grueling professional career; be the greatest, most involved, “best friend” mom ever; volunteer in the community; entertain in your always sparkling clean home; be a perfectly groomed, in shape and enthusiastic lover to your partner. I am woman – hear me roar!
Hear me groan more was more like it. I also saw a world where to be feminine was considered to be behaving in a weak and subservient manner. Where nurturing women who chose to stay home and raise their children were viewed, at best, as second class citizens who couldn’t cut it out in “the real world” and at the worst as some sort of gender traitors. Where other women judged you upon your response to the words, “and what do you do”? Where everyone was over-worked, over-scheduled, over-tired and too afraid to admit it.
We shouldn’t tell little girls that they must be the proper little princess in the pink dress, but neither should we be telling them that to be a proper girl that they have to out boy the boys. Boys are not the standard to which their value as girls should be measured. That’s not equality – it’s insecurity.
So Veronica, you just keep on doing what you’re doing. Follow the path that works for you and never let anyone make you feel bad for not changing your own oil.