Growing Up Female

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[This posting was written at the (recent) request of some of my women friends who have looked back on their lives now that they are in their 50s and 60s and older and marvel at their survival and achievements no matter what life dumped on them. We are amazing!]

Where we are born and raised is the most significant factor of our lives, male or female. We either benefit from our birth origins or we suffer. Many of us suffer our entire lives under oppression from government, from parents, from religious doctrines, economic influences, and the lack of any type of civil or personal rights. This applies to both genders but it has always been particularly challenging for women. Where we grow up and how we grow up affects women around the world more than men in what is still a male-dominated planet. And women in industrial societies live under a false sense of equality. Dig around a little and we see we haven’t come as far as we’d like to think. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

Most women are physically smaller than men. Right from birth that removes one step of our equal footing. We all know women who can beat the crap out of any man if needed but most of us cannot. And of those who can, the trials and tribulations they have gone through in life to be physically equal to men is often accompanied by a physical structure that lends itself to building strong powerful bodies and the opportunity to go in that direction. My 5’2” mother would not succeed in a battle with a 6’4” man. Yes, there are women who have been trained in martial arts who do a good job in self-defense but women are not routinely trained in the art of self‑protection. We are not raised with aggression as a childhood attribute. It is not part of our overall general culture. Training of this nature is even forbidden in some cultures. It should be provided given the number of brutal rapes and domestic violence that occurs in the world. We are all too often victims at the hands of our larger male counterparts. Especially in war regions where we are the spoils of war (often along with our children). That’s the first separation of male/female equality and it begins at birth. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

Western cultures have made great strides in working together as men and women. We have improved our perception of women in the work place, women in politics, and women as mothers are no longer considered inferior to men and their careers. In fact, today many married couples share child raising responsibilities equally and more and more men take time off from work to be with their babies and toddlers while the women return to the work place to provide for the family. But this is a small, enlightened bunch of folks, comparatively, and if we dig deeply into our circle of family and friends we often do not see these couples as much as we do on TV or in the movies. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

Women are still the primary caregivers for kids but now they have the added responsibility of bringing in quality paychecks at the same time--but not until they have done the laundry and the grocery shopping and cooked dinner and cleaned up the dinner mess (along with the breakfast mess) and packed the lunches and bathed the kids and helped them with their homework and dropped them off at daycare or school and raced home during work to pick up a sick kid and balanced the family bookkeeping and cleaned the house and wrestled whining kids to bed and countless other duties with traditional expectations that keep them going 24/7 with little sleep, less help, and husbands who expect sex kittens at bedtime because the dads are well rested after dinner, a few beers, and an evening of ESPN. For those who know relationships not in this category, congratulations. For every one relationship not in this category there are thousands that are. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

How about education for women? Years ago, in my grandmother’s time, most women didn’t finish high school. A very few with upscale parents went to college and developed careers. How many of our grandmothers in my age group did that? None in my family. None. Some cultures today do not allow their females to go to school. Any school. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

My grandmother worked two and three jobs at a time while raising kids. She worked in canneries and as domestic help in wealthy homes. As a child she had to drop out of school in the fourth grade to help her mother raise eight children. When her mother continued to get pregnant again and again my grandmother left home at 15 and never went back. I can only think of a couple in my peer group who had grandmothers who went on to higher education. My grandmother also divorced around 1930. Imagine raising kids alone in that era. Her husband was an alcoholic brute but she received no help whatsoever from anyone including the legal system nor her religious community. She did however have enough inner strength to pull an elephant through a swamp with a rope between her teeth while fighting off men who prey on single women at poverty level. Landlords really do offer free rent for a roll in the hay. Women have often traded sex for rent, car repairs, and food money. My grandmother did not succumb to such sinister arrangements. I pity the fools (borrowed from Mr. T) who attempted to coerce her. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

In my mother’s age group more finished high school but did not go to college. I do know a few women in that group who went to college but very few. More than in my grandmother’s time. The women in the group that went to high school in my mom’s age group did not stay home and bake cookies and wear dresses and aprons as depicted in Leave It To Beaver and countless other TV shows. All the women in my family worked. They worked in canneries, as housekeepers, as waitresses, as sales clerks, in factories and in department stores (if they looked good and only if they looked good). (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

My mother and her friends all laughed at the women depicted in films and TV. True, there were women out there who were homemakers and their husbands provided for the families but for millions of women around the world that was a fairy tale. Most women have always worked. I recently watched a news report about African women. They provide 80% of all agricultural products for Africa. For the entire continent. And that’s down because big agri-business is encroaching on what was traditionally a woman’s enterprise. Much of it is and was subsistence farming but some produce went to market. These women are now losing a foothold in their menial existence and where will they go when their farming income goes to big business (run by men)? Few countries in Africa are doing well, and the overall theme of mistreatment of women is flourishing. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

Women in my age group not only finished high school but some went to college. I went to work. Education in my youth was based on family income/status or super high academic success, neither of which did I possess. I came from a modest family income/status and I produced a modest academic record. I was pigeonholed quite early into clerical work. I didn’t question the direction I was given by my high school counselors because no one in my family had gone to college so I didn’t see that in my future. (I did go later in life and obtained an A.A. five years at night while working full time, and right before I was to transfer to get my B.A. my kids caught up with me and were suddenly in college and there wasn’t enough money for three of us to go to college. There wasn’t enough money for two of us in college so we all three worked our butts off to get the two of them educated without any help from anyone.) (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

And that brings me to divorce. The divorce rate in western cultures is staggering. For all the talk about values we stink at marriage. I have long been an advocate of a complete overhaul of the marriage contract. Reform should be taught in schools beginning in preschool. None of us are prepared for the rigors of a strong marriage and many of us select the wrong mates for the wrong reasons. We are hopeless victims of our hormones and when they calm down and we look at our “soulmates” we are horrified. By then we have children and, as usual, women are the ones with total responsibility. When checking my address book and discussing this topic with family and friends, it is my experience that the women are still taking on the responsibility of single parenting (that sadly includes today’s young women.) No major advances in this category. Some receive better help from ex husbands today only because the courts have finally forced them to be financially responsible, but many dads have found ways to fool the courts. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

I know dozens, maybe hundreds of women who have been the sole responsibility of their children after a divorce. Even with child support, most women suffer tremendous loss in lifestyle when left with small children. Women often go from a cute little home in the suburbs to abject poverty living in less than a cute little home in the suburbs. For women who didn’t get to the cute little home in the suburbs to begin with they often end up in squalor. Some women never catch up financially depending on their age and the age of their children at the time of the divorce. Don't believe me? Check out divorce statistics and the fate of women. Divorced women reaching retirement do not do as well as their former husbands at retirement. It’s about catching up. Check out the court system that is overloaded with deadbeat dads. Yes, there are deadbeat moms. I don't know any of them. The women I’ve known throughout my 65 years are pillars of strength. They are typically incredibly strong, self-sacrificing, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

Movies for many years depicted divorced men or widowed men with children being courted by every woman within a mile of their homes. These men always had housekeepers after divorce or death of a spouse. Some men had housekeepers even if they didn’t have children. That’s our fault. My son knows how to cook, sew, clean, grocery shop with a list, and take care of himself. Women hurt other women by not raising men who are capable of self-maintenance. We need to raise men who will be partners in life and not machismo jerks whose contribution to the family is taking the garbage out. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

And that’s western cultures. Thanks to modern satellite media reports we all know how women around the planet earth live. Some of it is horrific and for female children deadly. Because there are women in this world in the year 2010 living lives of horror and oppression and fear and starvation and brutality and human trafficking for sex and labor, we look at our own western lives as being perfect. Not true. And it is our responsibility to continue to raise ourselves to a level of equality precisely to help those who have no privileges at all. Not even the rights to manage their own bodies as far as how many children to have, or health care (some cultures refuse to allow women to see health care providers), food (food is often withheld from women when they have misbehaved), and many other misogynistic methods for keeping women “in their place.” Many cultures in the world despise their women because (I love this one) they menstruate and are therefore considered “dirty” and have less value than their livestock. Except for the breeding factor. To have boys not girls. Some cultures want a few girls in their families for bartering purposes. You know, I’ll give you my female if you give me your cow. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

Yet, we don't have to look to developing nations to find women living in oppression. There are many levels of subjugation and oppression, and often insidiously difficult to see on the surface in the U.S. It’s in the work place and in politics and in many other areas of daily life. Ever notice how many women behave like men in order to succeed in business and politics? Somewhere along the way they lose that which makes them women and turn into men in dresses. Why is that? Because if they don't become men in those areas they will not succeed. Being male in the world means domination. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

I know there are men who are not like that. My son, for one, is not like that. He isn’t a “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” (borrowed from 9 to 5) and doesn’t have a biased dominating womanizing selfish bone in his body. (Guess why?) Some men have had trouble understanding my son because of his intense respect for women and cultural differences in society and his ability to dig deeply into the psyches of the people he meets and not take them on surface values. What a concept! (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

I happen to be a white female born in the U.S. I know my non-white sisters have stories to tell that would make our ears burn. In fact, I’ve heard many of them. (Just this week I heard a report that African American women do not receive timely test reports for mammography compared to their white counterparts. Why?) Fortunately, women of color around the world (many “first ladies” from African nations have joined together to help women in their respective countries) are forming groups and writing and making a voice for themselves as women first, and as a particular race second. Regardless of our ethnicity we are women first. If we fight bias at the first level, gender, other areas of our lives will improve including our race, our religion, our sexual orientation, or a myriad of other life semi-institutions. We are women. In the United States we need to continue to bind ourselves to each other to protect those who are not able to. It will spread. It has spread. Whether we like it our not, those of us born in the U.S. must be stronger, tougher, wiser, and more responsible so we can fight for the rights of women in the world with nothing. With absolutely nothing. Not even the trading value of a cow. (Yes, I know there are exceptions.)

Complacency kills. Let’s not take a deep breath and think we are okay. Collectively, we are not. I had planned on closing with a string of obnoxious terms and phrases used to identify “the weaker sex” but decided after that one I couldn’t stomach the thought. We are not the weaker sex. We too can pull elephants through a swamp with a rope in our teeth and then go home and help our kids with homework and do the laundry and pay the bills and go to work and mow the lawn and paint the house and fix broken doors and dig holes to bury beloved family pets and go to night school to make a better life for our kids and ourselves even if it takes five years and read to kids who are struggling in school, and do it all knowing we are not alone. And we need to bring our men along with us starting with our baby boys. We are amazing. (No exceptions.)

'Cause I've got faith of the heart
I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star
I've got faith, I’ve got faith---faith of the heart

Faith of the Heart -by Diane Warren

www.sharonstrawhandgarner.com

[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]