In the late 1960's, from my perspective as a budding teenager, feminism and women's liberation, although clearly needed, came with a bite and it was dragging a heavy load of baggage I did not quite understand then. The movement scared me. It exploded with an "I'm mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore" feel that I could not entirely get behind.
I was too fresh, too new to the scene. I was barely acquiring breasts, tender protrusions I got teased and shamed for that I was overly eager to lock down in a tight restraining "training" bra to minimize their movement as well as the attention drawn to them.
My mother on the other hand, was fed up. She had enough and was not happy being married to my father. Our family witnessed daily evidence of this for many years. She hated feeling stuck in a role of expected chores and never ending slave-like labor that elicited no praise, affection, nor appreciation.
It was hard for me to tell if this liberation movement spurred her behavior within our house, or whether she was organically one part of it. Or whether it was a "One Hundreth Monkey" thing that suddenly bloomed within her as it came to fruition within all women, an awareness that power and freedoms needed a serious shift toward women to be in better balance or all hell was going to break out. All hell broke out in our house because her determination and furry threatened my father and his masculine nature tried to squelch her in many insidious emotional ways.
Her angry upset led to frequent protests against his calm belittling jabs. Her violent resistance directly against my father, became a daily occurrence, any time he was around as well as bad mouthing him when he wasn't. Her violent outburst escalated and became life threatening a number of times.
I felt her pain, I saw her plight and understood her need and discomfort. Her reaction was however unreasonable was in fact reasonable considering what she was up against. However I could not get behind the way her fight came out, explosive and mean spirited, fueled by something much greater, either historically in her own life, or something women had suffered for generations.
Her fight was not something she would ever win gracefully, nor would she simply be granted freedoms for her asking. She was bashing up against a threatened male ego, that knew worse ways to fight and win than she could ever imagine. Her reactivity and tone was a set up for him poke fun at her, to call her crazy, and belittle her, put her down, and not take her seriously, and to slyly use passive aggression to take her down, destroy her.
This resistance to being bullied, put down, manipulated, and controlled was happening in other homes too. Homes where any women challenging her husband's understanding of the limited freedom and roles of women to serve a man within a marriage was as likely to lead to doctor visits and emotion-numbing psychotropic drug prescriptions that rendered a mother nearly dead to her family.
My mother struggled to emancipate herself from being a housewife. When she first filed for a divorce in 1967, it was denied! She was at her wits end needing to get out of her marriage and a county judge had the power and ability to rule, "no!" you can not! divorce denied! (because my father did not want a divorce!).
She tried again in 1968 and her request began a six year process of weekly court battles to determine a settlement, the dissolution of her marriage to my father. It was grueling, loaded with shaming lies. And at times pulled us kids into it when we were requested to testify against one or the other parent. Something I refused to do because I just could not see that working out for anyone. I loved both my parents. And I could see where they each were wrong and suffering, and declaring ultimate power.
Respectful conduct was not part of my parents behavior toward each other. Which apparently is a global problem that has continued in America and many other countries.
My mother loved us, but was not content to just take care of five children she might not have had if she had a choice about when and how she conceived. Being catholic left conception to fate. Which often meant most married women felt obligated to be the receptacle of all sexual inclinations of their mates, and they often had another child as often as her body would conceive.
My mother was an affectionate, sensual, Goddess-like Mexican Indian. She longed to collect on her striking beauty, as a Hollywood actress or model. Or perhaps she might have studied medicine, or flown a small plane to exotic places around the globe or continue teaching, or created a farm school for troubled teenagers.
Instead, she got courted by a nerdy engineer, an outdoor enthusiast who belonged to "The Mountain Dancers" club, a social group that liked to hike, camp and dance. He was a photographer, whose attention on her was too alluring to resist. So, she married this adorable Irish geek with wavy brown hair, horn rimmed glasses, and flirty Irish eyes, who was sexually repressed, touch deprived, and horny.
Her religion did not allow her to prevent conception. So five children immediately followed within eight years. By the time the last one was born, her body and mind were tired of holding up a 1950's facade of the perfect family living in a modern Eichler tract home neighborhood in the picturesque new settlement in Lucas Valley, in Marin County. We have many staged 16mm films showing the effort made to show well.
Due to her stress and discontent, by the time I turned thirteen, I made a pact with myself that I would never marry, have children nor be a secretary, as it was clear to me these roles were wrought with problems in our society that kept women trapped, in demeaning subservient roles, something I felt determined to avoid.
Concurrent with my begging a pleading to finally get a bra to wear to settle the pain on my chest, women were burning them. So, my mother refused to purchase an item of clothing she deemed useless, figuring I only wanted one in order to join the ranks of women in Berkeley who were protesting and taking a very public stand against their expected roles, by burning their bras! A charchol-black roasted bra in flames on a stick became the symbol of a "Liberated Woman". I saw this movement with cautious eyes. I felt wary of the ugliness, destruction, the anger and the hatred of men.
And I could not help wondering even then; if women decline their roles and break free, and acquire rights and abilities to do more of what they want to do in life, what will happen to the men? Will there also be at some point, a Men's Liberation Movement?
I suspected women stepping out of their known roles would disorient men. I wondered, how will men fall if women stop taking care of everything for them, and who will they become if they are forced to do what women do for them, for themselves? I saw men as extremely weak due to their fragile egos that need to be stoked by praise all the time. I felt sorry for men being left behind.
I thought to myself, sooner or later, men will also step up and out of their expected roles... and won't we all be surprised that there is a flip side to women's liberation: men's liberation.
Fast forward nearly fifty years later. What do we have now? A MESS!
I would have expected that things evened out by now, but that is not the case. And instead of WLM being followed a few years later by a MLM... We only gained a little progress. And strangely the male population in general has not stepped up to be emancipated from grueling roles. Instead there's been a backlash. Men have gotten meaner uglier and more controlling. They are far less like;y to protect or look out for women.
There is a lovely movement of men trying a lot harder to appeal to women, by getting softer, more aware, more caring. And surely we have benefited from the writings and progressive perspectives of Iron John, and supportive workshops and men's groups... helping men find themselves and become a bit more aware... but mostly, we now suffer the outcome of women's liberation:
Women can work, and go home and take care of everything at home. In many households women still do everything, or close to everything. Women have had to be more masculine out in the world to hold their own in the work force... and this pretty much robs women of the natural feminine nature. And masculine women completely offsets a balance of attraction and need. Once women were independent, men had no place, and no security with women, which I think has led to them becoming more abusive, in order to try to gain power over women.
Women did not really gain much more than their "independence"... yet also endure getting treated badly for it, versus earning respect.
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Coming of Age
Coming of age in the midst of the beginning of the Women’s Liberation Movement led me to question what I wanted as a woman, long before I was one, felt like one, or even considered whether I was willing to be one, or wanted to be one in the traditional sense.
"Women’s Lib" led me to assess what I wanted, or what women ought to want, before I even wanted much. I grew up in a pack of boys, one of five siblings, the middle child, oldest girl. Mostly I wanted to like my brothers and do what they did, have the power and independence they had. I followed my brothers, learned to wrestle, run, jump and climb things. I was physically fit and active and preferred to be outside. I also preferred my brothers’ chores: mowing the lawn or trimming plants in the yard. and piling leaves or branches, versus my weekly chores, wiping counters, sweeping and mopping floors or scrubbing the bathroom which took a full hour, and included wiping down the piss splattered walls and a smelly toilet.
I was raised to not want; nor ask, for anything, even protection. From experience I learned my needs and desires were insignificant, likely to be overlooked, skipped, and simply unknown. Within the constant chaotic commotion in our home, my most prominent practice was coping. I shrank back, felt shy, and became passive in order to be more peaceful. I obeyed. I did what was expected of me in order to minimize physical abuse against me and deescalate turmoil. At some point I came to believe my feminine nature was to acquiesce. To be fluid, flexible, easy going, and unattached to outcome.
So the mere idea that women were questioning what they wanted and whether they would keep doing what was expected of them at a point when I was not allowed to question any authority above me, led me to wonder how they came be so bold; to have any desires or preferences, as well as the strength and fervor to stand strong for what they believed was more fair, right and good, or at least better than some status quo that apparently felt demeaning to a lot of women. Well, enough that many were attempting to put an end to someone other then themselves deciding for them what they get to do.
So what first scared me, as I witnessed my own mother stepping outside her role as a mother and a homemaking wife, I also felt invigorated by women dreaming into and creating more fulfilling lives than simply filling an expected role. However, I also had no idea where I fit in the spectrum of what woman do – that was suddenly a lot wider than I thought it would ever be.
And I had no idea how suppressed and oppressed women were, nor would still be many, many years later. I was not angry then. I was too young to be upset about the roles. And I saw quite young that I did not want to simply do or not do the opposite role to just be adverse. I knew it would be best if all women had the option and could make their decision based on their own interests and dedications, either to raising kids and care for family, or become a professional business person, doing research or inventing something.
In 1968, I turned ten. For a few years at that time, all I wanted was a bra to hold back or flatten the tiny extremely tender breast buds sprouting on my chest. I tried to hide them by wearing two shirts, a boys T-Shirt and flannel plaid shirt. I rolled my shoulders forward so the fabric would hang more forward than my small protrusions. I did not want them visible for getting teased when they showed. I also wanted to protect them because they seemed to be magnets to hard smacks during disruptions and tussles, leaving me in tears every time they got hit. My mother was passionately against getting a bra for me. Women were burning them to display their emancipation. I wonder now, if she simply feared I only wanted one so I could burn it. In any case I eventually purchased my own with my babysitting money.
At eleven my menses began mid-morning on a very windy fall day. A day I had mistakenly worn a skirt, a skirt my mother insisted I wear (to break my habit of dressing like a boy in my brothers outgrown clothes). The skirt was a light weight dark green cotton skirt, with enough gathers that it could easily catch the wind and lift completely, showing everything I preferred to hide. That day was the second day of seventh grade in a new school, a junior high school, where the most relentless teasing takes place and kids are not inclined to give anyone slack for vulnerabilities nor simply being a human animal who must tend to human functions like bleeding all over white, thigh length lacy pettipants – that I wore under skirts because I felt prudish and never wanted my bare thighs nor underwear to show to anyone.
I discovered trying to keep a skirt from blowing and revealing unders was a challenge that day, while carrying a heavy load of new books. Trying to always have one arm free and vigilant, ready to swoop down and keep my flying skirt from turning up like an inverted umbrella. I thought I was trying to hide my underclothes... not the fact that I become a woman on the second day seventh grade.
Periods are notoriously unpredictable especially the first time when girls have no reference points to the warnings or sensations or likely timing. So imagine my surprise; in the bathroom between classes during a five minute break time, I discover not just a little spot of blood leaking through my panties to the crotch of my pettipants where someone might not even see it if my skirt went up, instead, nearly all my pettipants were bright red, it had soaked upward half way up my butt, and to my belly on the front, and then all the way down the lace covered leg part, soaking all but the far outside of the lacy legs. That was a lot of blood. Unexpected very liquid blood suddenly flowing blood, that gets all over everything! And I did not even feel exiting my body!
I knew I could not go through the rest of the day like that; I knew I had to rinse these out my under garments before the blood dried and stained them forever. Being the only one in the bathroom at that time, I simply knew what had to happen. I did not think of the challenge, washing them could become.
I stepped out of my bloody unders and walked out of the stall to rinse them in the sink. Just about the time the dissolved blood filled the whole sink, making it look like it was a sink full of blood, a few girls began to enter and instantly scream in horror, turn, and immediately run out with their hands covering their mouths. Which led to an exponential increasing number of new girls entering the bathroom in droves screaming and running out.
In the short amount of time that it took before the brilliant red blood from my under cloths was rinsed away down the drain as to not be so shocking, twenty to thirty girls had seen me with my hands in a sink full of blood. Word got around fast and eventually more daring girls eventually came in and stayed longer to figure out that no, I was not cut, nor injured, and I did not kill anything. Instead I had an embarrassing female accident which was still grounds for endless ridicule.
That moment of my becoming a woman, was a traumatic turning point, one I will never forget. It was traumatic due to other girls reactions, their unnerved incessant screaming. It was the day my body showed proof I could conceive, proof that I am was not a girl-ish boy. I was proud I had the ability and wherewith all to address the issues my maturing body produced, yet I also mourned the loss of the possibility that I could continue my hopes that I would discover I was a unique version of a boy, or some suspended in between who never became a full blown woman, and remained free to be more like a boy. That day, I lost my boyhood... clearly, sadly, I would turn into a woman.
This awareness led to endless internal inquiry: what does it mean to be a woman, and what do I want it to mean. Where is my power? How do I express it? How do I remain strong, and become a woman when I associate strength with masculinity? And the endless sad inquiry: what do I have to do to be loved and accepted? How do I retain my feminine gentle softness and still take a stand in protection of myself and others. It seemed challenging to come fully into my feminine power and not be associated with "Man-hating Women's Libbers".
Over the years I have continued to explore the dance of feminine nature, how it happens in me and many others. I celebrate her presence and unfolding. I have learned to love and honor the value of feminine nature expressed in all women. Her message is valuable, her voice is needed, for survival and healing. I will speak and share from what I know and invite others to write what they know and feel inclined to share as well, in hopes that in sharing, it will help us all. In Peace. Yin At Heart. Erin
"Women’s Lib" led me to assess what I wanted, or what women ought to want, before I even wanted much. I grew up in a pack of boys, one of five siblings, the middle child, oldest girl. Mostly I wanted to like my brothers and do what they did, have the power and independence they had. I followed my brothers, learned to wrestle, run, jump and climb things. I was physically fit and active and preferred to be outside. I also preferred my brothers’ chores: mowing the lawn or trimming plants in the yard. and piling leaves or branches, versus my weekly chores, wiping counters, sweeping and mopping floors or scrubbing the bathroom which took a full hour, and included wiping down the piss splattered walls and a smelly toilet.
I was raised to not want; nor ask, for anything, even protection. From experience I learned my needs and desires were insignificant, likely to be overlooked, skipped, and simply unknown. Within the constant chaotic commotion in our home, my most prominent practice was coping. I shrank back, felt shy, and became passive in order to be more peaceful. I obeyed. I did what was expected of me in order to minimize physical abuse against me and deescalate turmoil. At some point I came to believe my feminine nature was to acquiesce. To be fluid, flexible, easy going, and unattached to outcome.
So the mere idea that women were questioning what they wanted and whether they would keep doing what was expected of them at a point when I was not allowed to question any authority above me, led me to wonder how they came be so bold; to have any desires or preferences, as well as the strength and fervor to stand strong for what they believed was more fair, right and good, or at least better than some status quo that apparently felt demeaning to a lot of women. Well, enough that many were attempting to put an end to someone other then themselves deciding for them what they get to do.
So what first scared me, as I witnessed my own mother stepping outside her role as a mother and a homemaking wife, I also felt invigorated by women dreaming into and creating more fulfilling lives than simply filling an expected role. However, I also had no idea where I fit in the spectrum of what woman do – that was suddenly a lot wider than I thought it would ever be.
And I had no idea how suppressed and oppressed women were, nor would still be many, many years later. I was not angry then. I was too young to be upset about the roles. And I saw quite young that I did not want to simply do or not do the opposite role to just be adverse. I knew it would be best if all women had the option and could make their decision based on their own interests and dedications, either to raising kids and care for family, or become a professional business person, doing research or inventing something.
In 1968, I turned ten. For a few years at that time, all I wanted was a bra to hold back or flatten the tiny extremely tender breast buds sprouting on my chest. I tried to hide them by wearing two shirts, a boys T-Shirt and flannel plaid shirt. I rolled my shoulders forward so the fabric would hang more forward than my small protrusions. I did not want them visible for getting teased when they showed. I also wanted to protect them because they seemed to be magnets to hard smacks during disruptions and tussles, leaving me in tears every time they got hit. My mother was passionately against getting a bra for me. Women were burning them to display their emancipation. I wonder now, if she simply feared I only wanted one so I could burn it. In any case I eventually purchased my own with my babysitting money.
At eleven my menses began mid-morning on a very windy fall day. A day I had mistakenly worn a skirt, a skirt my mother insisted I wear (to break my habit of dressing like a boy in my brothers outgrown clothes). The skirt was a light weight dark green cotton skirt, with enough gathers that it could easily catch the wind and lift completely, showing everything I preferred to hide. That day was the second day of seventh grade in a new school, a junior high school, where the most relentless teasing takes place and kids are not inclined to give anyone slack for vulnerabilities nor simply being a human animal who must tend to human functions like bleeding all over white, thigh length lacy pettipants – that I wore under skirts because I felt prudish and never wanted my bare thighs nor underwear to show to anyone.
I discovered trying to keep a skirt from blowing and revealing unders was a challenge that day, while carrying a heavy load of new books. Trying to always have one arm free and vigilant, ready to swoop down and keep my flying skirt from turning up like an inverted umbrella. I thought I was trying to hide my underclothes... not the fact that I become a woman on the second day seventh grade.
Periods are notoriously unpredictable especially the first time when girls have no reference points to the warnings or sensations or likely timing. So imagine my surprise; in the bathroom between classes during a five minute break time, I discover not just a little spot of blood leaking through my panties to the crotch of my pettipants where someone might not even see it if my skirt went up, instead, nearly all my pettipants were bright red, it had soaked upward half way up my butt, and to my belly on the front, and then all the way down the lace covered leg part, soaking all but the far outside of the lacy legs. That was a lot of blood. Unexpected very liquid blood suddenly flowing blood, that gets all over everything! And I did not even feel exiting my body!
I knew I could not go through the rest of the day like that; I knew I had to rinse these out my under garments before the blood dried and stained them forever. Being the only one in the bathroom at that time, I simply knew what had to happen. I did not think of the challenge, washing them could become.
I stepped out of my bloody unders and walked out of the stall to rinse them in the sink. Just about the time the dissolved blood filled the whole sink, making it look like it was a sink full of blood, a few girls began to enter and instantly scream in horror, turn, and immediately run out with their hands covering their mouths. Which led to an exponential increasing number of new girls entering the bathroom in droves screaming and running out.
In the short amount of time that it took before the brilliant red blood from my under cloths was rinsed away down the drain as to not be so shocking, twenty to thirty girls had seen me with my hands in a sink full of blood. Word got around fast and eventually more daring girls eventually came in and stayed longer to figure out that no, I was not cut, nor injured, and I did not kill anything. Instead I had an embarrassing female accident which was still grounds for endless ridicule.
That moment of my becoming a woman, was a traumatic turning point, one I will never forget. It was traumatic due to other girls reactions, their unnerved incessant screaming. It was the day my body showed proof I could conceive, proof that I am was not a girl-ish boy. I was proud I had the ability and wherewith all to address the issues my maturing body produced, yet I also mourned the loss of the possibility that I could continue my hopes that I would discover I was a unique version of a boy, or some suspended in between who never became a full blown woman, and remained free to be more like a boy. That day, I lost my boyhood... clearly, sadly, I would turn into a woman.
This awareness led to endless internal inquiry: what does it mean to be a woman, and what do I want it to mean. Where is my power? How do I express it? How do I remain strong, and become a woman when I associate strength with masculinity? And the endless sad inquiry: what do I have to do to be loved and accepted? How do I retain my feminine gentle softness and still take a stand in protection of myself and others. It seemed challenging to come fully into my feminine power and not be associated with "Man-hating Women's Libbers".
Over the years I have continued to explore the dance of feminine nature, how it happens in me and many others. I celebrate her presence and unfolding. I have learned to love and honor the value of feminine nature expressed in all women. Her message is valuable, her voice is needed, for survival and healing. I will speak and share from what I know and invite others to write what they know and feel inclined to share as well, in hopes that in sharing, it will help us all. In Peace. Yin At Heart. Erin
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