I really had no intention of using this WordPress.com blog site. I only set it up to make it easier to follow my friends who use Wordpress for their blogs. But tonight I decided I am getting off my subject on my other two blogs: Writers Circle and Writing Your Life Stories. Both of them were designed for writing.
The happenings in the world recently and most especially in our own country have turned by mind to more worldly topics. I find myself reminded of the days when women had fewer opportunities than today. There was a time, not long ago, when women could not have a credit card. The husband had a credit card and he could put his wife’s name down to have a second card, but he was the primary card holder. Often his wife was refused the right to use it because she was not the primary card holder.
When I was an elementary school student, we were not allowed to wear jeans or pants to school. I was a tomboy and loved to wear jeans at home, but in school we had to wear dresses or skirts. I was embarrassed when swinging high on the school swings, my dress would fly up and I knew my underwear was being seen by the boys. It made no sense our not being allowed to wear pants. In high school we had a dress code, and girls were required to wear dresses except when engaged in sports. We wore shorts for Physical Education, big baggy things that looked terrible on anyone.
I grew up a bit angry that I was not allowed to do what boys could do. My father had the idea that girls were not to be trusted so he kept a tight rein on my sisters and me. He was afraid that we would get pregnant out of wedlock, I suppose, and ruin our family’s good name. But we were good girls and never brought any shame on him until we went off to college at the University.
That shame came about when my sister innocently said to an Atlanta Journal news reporter that since Charlene Hunter, the first black student to enter the college, was there she thought people should just leave her alone. That statement, when read by family and friends in our hometown, brought a storm of phone calls accusing Gay of being in favor of school integration, when in fact Gay was 18 years old and completely unconcerned about who was going to the huge university. She had not been keeping up with the Civil Rights actions and was far more concerned about who she was going to date that weekend. But she saw the pretty young woman enter the dormitory where Gay sat at the desk answering the phone. She did not see a person who was a threat. Why, indeed, couldn’t they just leave her alone.
Looking back at that time, I think she and I were already pushing the envelope as far as the strict rules we had grown up with. We were open minded, non-judgmental and made friends with people from all walks of life. Perhaps that is why I find this new president such a backward thinking person. He reminds me of the men I often met in the sixties and seventies with little regard for women’s rights or for the rights of anyone different from him. That is why I think President Obama was such a breath of fresh air in our government. He, too, saw all people as equals not to be treated like underlings because of their race or gender. His age was also a factor, I believe, and having young daughters who saw the changes in our culture, the open minded people in their generation, had an affect on him. So quickly the progress he made and the progress we have all made is being torn asunder by this mad man who is so in love with himself and so insecure he can’t face the fact that he lost the votes of most of America, but won the electoral college.
I have vowed I will no longer keep my political thoughts to myself. This blog is where I will express my feelings about the state of the country. Maybe someone will find me here and join in.
