I was moved on many levels by the reading today. Gloria is such a role model for women of my generation. We had similar backgrounds in that our moms did not live up to expectations of their mothers and we were in charge of caretaking when things were bad. I understand her desire to make things better for all women and so appreciate the ground work she put in place so that all women can reap the rewards of being equals with me. What a gifted writer..I had forgotten that. I wonder what history books say about her? Sadly most people have negative connotations when it comes to the word feminist. It took the bra burning to get the world to pay attention to the fact that we were being treated like second class citizens, but there was so much more to it.
It's really strange to think of how my reality is so much different from the reality that my grandmother faced. Wildly different!
ReplyDeleteShe is a powerful writer and makes me remember something my mother had said years ago when she was still teaching. By the time she was close to retirement, she hated her job. Some of it was bureaucracy. She hated being told that she had to give people who did not work a C because it made the college look bad is she failed anyone. The other part was that she never got to teach what she really loved - history. When she went to school, that was a man's domain, and she was discouraged from choosing that. Instead, she went into business - typing, shorthand, etc. She did love the English language so it wasn't a complete bust, but her desire to share her love of history was severely curtailed.
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