My, "Lady Parts" Don't Define Me
When I was in 2nd grade my family lived across
the parking lot from the creamery where my father worked. You couldn’t keep me out of that
building. I knew every machine, every
vat, and every worker. When I informed
my mother that some day I was going to be a dairyman like my dad, I was brought
nose to nose with her. She informed me
in her urgent voice (I was always her, “difficult” child) that I couldn’t be a
dairyman. “You have to climb to the top
of those machines, and the men can look right up your skirt.” That pretty much settled it.
I went on to become a teacher, but
the sexual stereotyping kept right up with me.
I had been married only two years when I became pregnant. [I am one of those women who can’t drink out
of the same glass as her husband.]
District officials expected me to sign a request for maternity leave
starting in January. My due date was
June 9th but school was out June 4th and, frankly, I
needed the paycheck. I planned on
working the full term of my pregnancy.
The school district didn’t share
that plan. In a meeting with the head of
elementary education, he insisted I take leave; I insisted I wouldn’t. The number of men in the room kept
increasing, including the superintendent himself. At one point I tried to leave and was
prevented from doing so. Then I asked
the right question. Stressed and in
tears (my usual response to anger) I said, “I have a signed contract. Can you make me break a signed contract?”
The man across the desk hesitated
ever so slightly and moved backwards in his seat. That was it!
I knew I had them. They could try
to bully me into taking leave, but they couldn’t make me. I could and would teach the full term of my
contract! I got up, pushed my way out of
the room and completed not just that year, but 30 award winning years in
education. My daughter, by the way, was
born on her due date, five days after school was out.
The point is, I became a feminist
the hard way; I earned it by fighting the good fight every blessed day of my
working life. It was a battle constantly
made more difficult not by the men in my life (I could understand and
anticipate their motivation), but by the women. After retiring to what I thought was the
easy part of this journey, I am now met by a group of rabid, lathered women and
their witless male henchmen, bent on seeing me as nothing more than my
genitals. The Democratic e-card that
beckons women to, “vote like our lady parts depend on it” treats women like
simple minded reproductive machines.
Evidently, women shouldn’t be concerned with anything that doesn’t fall
between our navel and knees!
Gee, thanks for the vote of
confidence, ladies! I guess my earned
master’s degrees in administration and economics don’t count. My work, my mind, my opinions on such heady
philosophies as freedom, historical values, Constitutional guidance and
economic reality mean nothing as long as I can get birth control and
abortions. Some group in the Democratic
Party spent a great deal of time and money producing a fund-raising vehicle
that is both offensive and demeaning.
These people are the most sexist, mouth breathing troglodytes I have
ever had to deal with—and most of them are women!
See women as more than the sum of
their parts, and keep the faith.
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