Friday, October 27, 2006

Being Female

As a child, I played with other neighborhood children without regard for who was a boy and who was a girl. I didn’t really seem to matter, and we all liked the same things – playing in the woods (a vacant lot), playing cowboys and Indians, building things with bricks and, as we got older, roller skating. My best friend, Mary Jane, and I did play dolls, but not when the boys were around.

Once, when I was about four, I was playing with my friend, Butch, (who lived in the house behind us). It was a hot Alabama summer day, and he took his t-shirt off. That seemed like a fine idea to me, as well, so I took off mine. When my mother saw me running about without a top, she got very upset with me. She told me that I had to put my top on “right this minute” and that I was never to do it again. Meanwhile, Butch was standing there with his bare chest for all the world to see. I looked at his chest and then at my chest --- as far as I could see they looked exactly the same. My response was, you guessed it, “That’s not fair.” But I put my top back on and got on with life, never to remove my blouse in public ever again!

About the same time, another of my little male friends and I were playing in cardboard boxes, scooting ourselves across the carpet by sliding the boxes. For some reason, he felt compelled to show “himself” to me. Of course, I was interested. I knew that boys were different, but the details were unclear. His mother caught him, and he got in loads of trouble. I suspect he never did that again with a girl until he was MUCH older.

The whole time I was in grammar school, the differences between boys and girls and how they were treated were really not noticeable that I can recall. We were all friends, and played together at recess. The boys wore pants and we wore dresses. They had short hair and we had long hair.

In that same time frame, the early ‘50s, it was clear that what was expected for women was very different from what was expected of men. Mothers stayed home; they cooked and cleaned and sewed. When they went out, they went out to shop. Some days it was to the local shopping center or corner grocery. Some days, it was downtown to the big department stores. My mother drove, but my grandmother never learned how. So, my grandmother either rode along as a passenger or stayed home and gardened (which I think she preferred).

As a child, I wondered what my life would be like as a grown-up woman. I wasn’t really all that interested in the “domestic” things my mother and grandmother did. I was fascinated that my aunt worked in a law office. That was, of course, because she never married and had to “support herself.”

By the time I got to junior high, especially 9th grade, things started to change. We started looking at boys not as friends, but as boyfriends. In those days, it wasn’t really possible to be “friends” with a boy. Friendships with boys had to be dating-type friendships. That was a definite change, but one I accepted with—that is just the way it is.

By high school, this was even more pronounced. Some boys became more or less “gods” because they were good football players. Some girls fell into the goddess role as beauty queens. The rest of us, both boys and girls, tried to find our way. We all wanted to go to college, and about 98% of our graduating class DID go on to college. The boys were looking for careers. We girls were not sure what we were looking for.

In high school, I was told to study hard so I could get into college. Actually, I think the girls in my high school did better academically than the boys. Mothers were pushing college (remember, this was the South in the mid ‘60s) on their female daughters as a way to find a “man,” and to learn how to do something in case the unthinkable happens and you have to support yourself. You could get unlucky and not ever find a man, or the one you find may die or, heaven-forbid, divorce you. Or you could pick a real loser who was not a “good-provider.”

The summer before college, I spent time with my girlfriends talking about the future. We all wanted to do something with our lives other than just be wives and mothers. “It’s not fair” kept coming up in conversation. One friend was going to one of the “seven sisters” girls’ schools. She had to read a book called the Feminine Mystique. She asked me if I wanted to read it, but I never got around to it until years later. I wonder…would it have changed me back then?

Upon arrival at college, it was clear the landscape had changed. This was Auburn University in 1964. There was many more boys that girls (something mothers, including mine, had mentioned repeatedly during the college selection process). And it was immediately clear that the boys got considerably more freedom than we girls. Not that we were exactly looking for freedom. Just living in a dorm and not having parents telling us what to do was a big change.

Girls HAD to live in the dormitory; there was one large dormitory for boys, but boys could live wherever they liked. There as a legal doctrine of “in loco parentis” that gave the university the right to control the lives of its female students – known in those days as “co-eds.” Since boys typically come with parents as well, we were always a bit puzzled as to why they didn’t have to have rules, too. “It’s not fair” was heard a lot around the campus.

State law at that time was quite clear on the subject of drinking. You had to be 21. At Auburn, this was interpreted as “girls had to be 21.” Boys could drink, and did drink – to great excess! The beer and bourbon flowed freely in apartments and frat houses. Obviously, the boys weren’t doing all the drinking, but the girls (who typically mixed bourbon with Coca-Cola) could be kicked out of school. In my dorm, we had to take turns standing at the desk and smelling our fellow students’ breath at the desk. My sorority sisters made a pact – if they caught a sister with alcohol on her breath, she would first be reported internally to the “standards committee” before being reported to the school. Meanwhile, the boys drank and drank and drank and nobody cared. “It’s not fair” was our only response, but we did as we were told (at least I did).

We co-eds had other rules that didn’t apply to the boys. We had to be in the dorm by 11 p.m. on weekends; and even earlier on weeknights. We couldn’t go out in public with our hair in rollers. Slacks were banned, except within the quadrangle (the area formed by the “women’s” dormitories). Shorts were totally banned except in the dorm. Auburn girls, in those days, wore raincoats a lot, even on the sunniest of days in the summer time. Meanwhile, the boys could wear whatever they wanted.

I decided to major in education, although I would have much preferred to major in journalism. My mother thought I would do much better as an English major in education because with a teacher’s certificate I would never be without work.

I did meet my husband at Auburn, and I got my degree in education. In fact, I then went on and got a master’s degree, also in education. Then what? I had played by all the rules and did all the right things.

That was the point at which the REAL issue started to come into focus. I had the degrees, and I didn’t want to save them for the unlikely event that my healthy young husband would die an untimely death. He was an air force officer, but he was not going to Viet Nam – so I felt the odds of him dying were pretty slim. Besides, we could use the extra money we would get if I worked. Also, in college the they told us that if you didn’t use your degree, you would quickly go stale (the world was changing so fast --little did they know) and never be able to work.

Once married, I became a military dependent. I hated that term. I was a wife – a position with special provisions. I got an orange colored ID card. I joined the Officers’ Wives' Club and tried to play my role as best I could, although I wrestled with it a bit. They brought in luncheon speakers to keep our minds occupied. I had the pleasure of meeting and photographing Maureen Reagan, Erma Bombeck, Tom Snyder, Blackstone the Magician and other famous people.

What I noticed about the other officers’ wives was that they were bright, capable women. Most didn’t work, but most had college degree or even advanced degrees. The ones who did work, took part-time jobs just to keep involved in their professions. I enjoyed getting to meet them and made some great friendships.

I worked full-time for the first two years of our marriage and I enjoyed working. We saved the money I made. In time, our son came along and I worked a bit as a part-time college instructor. I kept my hand in, and I enjoyed the deviation from a life of diaper changing and, later, preschool.

In these years, the country was in an uproar over the rights of women. I didn’t (maybe I should have) take the time to be involved then. I was too busy doing my own thing and making my own way. In my field, being education, there really wasn’t much of a problem with how women were treated. There were WAY more of us than men, and women often rose to the rank of school principal.

As time went on and our son started school, I tried working a full-time job and leaving our son in daycare afterschool. It didn’t work very well; he hated the daycare. Meanwhile, the company I was working for closed, and I could do something different.

I ended up accepting a part-time job in an independent school and my son could go to school there for free. It was a great deal for both of us and our hours coincided.

But it was not to last, and the school closed. With three other women, I started another independent school and through eighth grade my son and I had schedules that meshed. But, truth is, I often stayed after regular school hours – something he didn’t really appreciate.

The years went by, our son went to high school and onto college. Meanwhile I became an entrepreneur and started my own business.

I have typically hired women who are very capable and talented, but can’t stand the “stay at home wife” thing. That has worked well for me, and has led us to flexible scheduling and even now, virtual offices. Ironically, I now have the best of both worlds.

When I became executive director of a women’s professional association, I became more in tune with the history of women’s rights, and it became crystal clear to me that there really was (and still is a problem) with how women are treated, particularly in some professions.

At age 60, I feel I can do whatever I want to, and nobody is going to tell me I can’t do that because I am a “woman.” (With the exception of taking my shirt off in public – that would still get me in trouble!). But, what I have to say, in retrospect, is that I could have approached being in business much differently – more like a man would. But that is not who I am, and I have to do it my way!

I hope the young women out there appreciate just how far we have come as women. Looking back, I can thank my “bra-burning” contemporaries for forcing society to re-think how women are treated. I can’t imagine a state university today imposing special rules on female students or enforcing state law selectively on women-only. But are there still things that happen that make us say “It’s not fair.” You bet! There is still much work to be done.

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