Oral Herstories Collected Essays
Sexual Politics, Art World Style: Feminist Artists of the 1970s Professor Shelley Rice Spring 2021
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Introduction Shelley Rice
Throughout the spring of 2021, I am teaching a seminar called Sexual Politics, Art World Style: Feminist Artists of the 1970s. There are 16 students enrolled, eight from the Tisch Photography and Imaging Department and eight from the CAS Art History Department. All of the students are women, besides the brave and engaged Max Kingsley, whose contributions to our heated discussions are always perceptive and welcome. The papers being published here were the second Response Papers assigned in the class. During our deep and often personal exchanges about the readings or the art works that we’re studying, I noticed that the students were frequently communicating with their mothers, their grandmothers, their aunts and their family friends about the content of the class. “Was your life like the ones described in Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, and did you read the book when you were young?” seems to have been a common query. The answers seemed so interesting that I asked everyone to do a formal interview, an oral history, with someone in their family or family circle who would have been a young woman in the 1970s. These wonderful papers are the result of that assignment. I think it’s fair to say that a good time was had by all. Interviewers, interviewees and readers (listeners in the class) learned a lot about each other. The similarities and differences in the life experiences of the elders are fascinating, and the students expressed delight and surprise at what they learned; they had never thought to inquire about their family histories, to ask their relatives about their youth, their choices and their relationship to the feminist movement. I am hoping that the publication of these papers might encourage others to ask about, and to share, their family stories, in ways that open up whole areas of understanding between generations.
The Kids Have a Mother Gabriela Aleksova
In class, we mostly talk about feminism from a Western point of view – the Betty Friedan way. However,
as horrible and as cruel the world was to the post-war American housewife, at least her problems were clear: she was confined to the home and isolated from the outside world. As we move east to the Soviet Union, we can immediately see the stark contrast between Friedan’s subject and the communist woman. One was a mother and a homemaker; the other was a worker. The former went to college to find a man, while the latter studied to become an engineer. Nancy wore cute dresses, maintained her figure, and did her hair and makeup; Ekaterina wore unisex clothing and was encouraged not to focus on superficial beauty. It is easy, then, to conclude that the USSR was light years ahead of the US when it came to feminism; in many ways, it was. But having lived in a post-communist country for most of my life, I know that women were not equal to men even in a system that preached equality for all. I recently interviewed my grandmother on my father’s side, Valentina – or, as I call her, Babushka – one of the most resilient, intelligent and wise women I have ever known, to find out what it was exactly that distinguished women from men in a state that depended on gender equality to function.
Babushka was born in Russia a couple of decades after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. This was one
of the most pivotal periods for Russian women: society was essentially feudal before the revolution. The men worked to provide for the family, while the women gave birth to many, many kids. She explained that she was one of four: “My mother had to stay at home and take care of us.” But the participants in the revolution were both male and female, led by the belief in the Marxist theory, and this was when women first established their place in society as workers equal to men. In addition, similarly to the United States, while the men were fighting at the front lines of the war, the women ran the inside operations and the Russian economy. “There was no going back,” Valentina said, “Who was going to tell women to go back to the kitchen after they had fought in the revolution and had kept the motherland afloat for so long during the war?”
She was taught Marxism in school. The Russian term for comrade, tovarisch, was used to address both
men and women; this set Russian apart from the rest of the Slavic languages, which had gendered forms of the word: kamarad and kamaradka. “I grew up knowing that boys and girls could do the same jobs,” my grand-
ma told me, “and I went on to study civil and mechanical engineering at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.” Her class had a good mix of male and female students, and there were only a few, very physically demanding programs at the institute that didn’t accept women. After graduation, she started a full-time job in an engineering company and later became head of her department. After ten years, she met my grandfather, and the two moved to Bulgaria – his home country. There, she found a new company to work for, where she was given an entry level position despite having been head of department back in Russia, because the Bulgarian firm “didn’t hire people off the street.” She smirked when she continued her sentence: “I made head engineer within a year of working there.” She was the only woman to hold such a high position at the company.
When I asked her how come she was the only woman to make it this far, when half of the employees
were female, she paused, then answered: “Perhaps because they were more devout mothers than me.” Valentina loved her job. She loved her two sons, too. And those two loves, intersected, broke her heart. I heard the pain in her voice when she told me: “I would be at work, which demanded my full attention and focus – I was an engineer, so I wasn’t allowed to make mistakes – and my heart would ache because I couldn’t pick up my kids from school and make them a warm, delicious lunch.” The communist state did everything it could to promote equality for women in the workplace because it needed all the working hands it could get. When it came to the home, however, the government didn’t care. This created two distinct spheres in women’s lives: the public and the private. The former was progressive, feminist and empowering. The latter was backwards, patriarchal and oppressive. Despite the fact that my grandmother and my grandfather both worked full time, all of the housework and childcare was her responsibility. She, and every other communist woman, worked double shifts every day, for their entire careers: a nine-to-five at work, and a five-to-bed-time at home. “To this day, I still remember what Boyan [her husband] used to say whenever our sons needed something from him,” Babushka told me and then switched to a mocking low male voice: “’The kids have a mother.’” As if a father is not a parent.
Thus, even though communism did wonders for women’s status in society, it did not reverse the genders’
approach to personal and intimate relations with one another. Yet, women were not willing to give up on having families in the name of their careers, so they stretched themselves thin, maintaining both spheres of their lives. “We were tough Russian chicks,” Valentina stated, “so we could do both, but we were pretty exhausted.” Towards the end of our conversation, Babushka mentioned that, in the sense of fulfilling their maternal roles,
perhaps American housewives were better off than the Soviets. “You might be right,” I answered, “but at least you had the right to choose your destiny.” She nodded in agreement.
Babushka and I came to the conclusion that women have not yet been equal to men because they have
always had to choose between a professional career and motherhood. Choosing both meant constantly sacrificing one for the other: if you want to be successful at your job, you can’t spend as much time with your kids; if you want to be a devoted mother, you can’t advance in your career. My grandmother is tough, so she managed to do both, even though it brought her as much suffering as it did satisfaction. But I can easily see how a woman can become paralyzed when faced with such a decision. Just like in Sylvia Plath’s book The Bell Jar, women get to pick a single fig: “one fig [is] a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig [is] a famous poet and another fig [is] a brilliant professor…” (73). How do we overcome this choice paralysis? More importantly, why do we have to face it to begin with? Fatherhood has never stopped men from being successful in their professions. But then again, “the kids have a mother.”
Making my Assumptions Face Reality Talia Rose Barton
My family has always made jokes about my grandmother marrying at nineteen. When I talk with her
over the phone about my dating life, I usually say something like “If only I got married at nineteen to a doctor or engineer, I’m two years behind,” or “I should have started dating medical students in high school just like you.” To my knowledge the narrative was that my grandfather had been her 1st grade Sunday school assistant teacher and that my grandmother had written in her diary at seven years old that she was going to marry David Barton. Twelve years later she did after dating him off and on from age fifteen onwards. I knew that she had dated other people before going off to Smith College where I thought she dropped out to get married, start a family, and eventually go back to school when she could. I thought these steps were not only something she wanted, but also something that was expected of her. I assumed that some of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique was describing my grandmother, that she had been trained to marry and eventually did so as soon as possible - I was wrong. I was projecting my assumptions about women at the time onto my grandmother, by that she wanted to get married so young and that she did not always want a career. My grandmother, Lynn Palmer Barton, grew up in Selma, Alabama. When she was young, the importance of education was instilled within her instead of the importance of a husband though it was always expected she would marry.
My grandmother told me that two of her friends got married right out of high school and one college
friend. I always concluded that my grandmother wanted to get married at nineteen since it did not seem atypical, but in fact she never wanted to get married that young. It was expected of her to finish her education at Smith before getting married and that she would have a job once she was married. During her sophomore year of college, my grandmother and grandfather began getting serious. She talked to her parents about potentially transferring to Newcomb to be closer to my grandfather who was in medical school at Tulane. Her father suggested that if she was going to transfer, she might as well get married. My grandmother stated to me that she wasn’t sure if her father said this to prevent her from having premarital sex since she was going to be in closer proximity to my grandfather or if he thought being married would benefit her studies. My great grandmother cried on the phone when my grandmother called to tell her she was engaged - she never asked if they were tears of joy or not. My grandmother married so young because my grandfather was five years older and he was at a time in his life where he was ready, so she agreed. After finishing her sophomore year of college, my grandmother got married, transferred colleges, and began her life as a full time student and full time wife.
I never realized how hard this transition was for her. Instead of date parties on the weekends like at
Smith, she was now cooking and cleaning in her free time. My grandmother had never taken home economics, she had never lived alone, never kept house, and never learned to cook. There was always someone looking after my grandmother. She went from home to camp to college to being married. My grandmother confessed to me that she felt inadequate because she had no idea how to be a housewife. My grandfather had lived on his own previously and had cooked and cleaned for himself, but if he tried to help her, my grandmother would cry. She was prepared to study and have a career, but years of school and her expensive college education had not prepared her for the life she had chosen. I had never thought that my independent kind grandmother had ever felt inadequate - especially in the home. In my eyes, she had always been a strong matriarch in our family. Whether she is working, as she still does even though my grandfather is retired, spending time with her grandchildren, or preparing large meals for Jewish holidays, I have always felt she has filled these roles confidently and adequately.
There were a couple of assumptions about my grandmother’s story that I assumed correctly. I knew my
grandfather had always worked. Throughout my father’s entire life and the whole time my grandparents had been married, he had been working as a psychiatrist whether in the army, teaching, or in private practice. He had never taken care of his kids beyond the ‘fun stuff ’ as my grandmother put it. My grandfather has never and does not view primary childcare or cleaning as his responsibility. Even when my grandmother was working full time, it was her ‘job’ to pick up and take care of the kids. When my grandmother graduated from social work school, my grandfather gave her a microwave oven, which was new at the time, so that she could still cook dinner every night, but do it more quickly. This prompted the discussion of guilt as a mother with my grandmother. She told me about a time where it snowed for days and the Nashville school system was shut down for almost a month. This was when she was working full time as a social worker and planning my father’s Bar Mitzvah. Every morning she would leave the kids alone because there was no other choice. There was no childcare available at this time, no one could watch the kids if the parents were working, so my grandmother often left my father and his siblings alone and would feel immense guilt about it. As a working woman, my grandmother realized that the world was not built for her. All the social events for women were held during the day and the grocery stores closed early. She had to shop and prepare foods on Saturday and clean all day Sunday in order to get ready for the week.
I was grateful for the opportunity to discuss these topics with my grandmother. I had been meaning to
ask these questions previously because, as I get older, I wonder what her life was like as a young wife and a mother - something I can’t imagine for myself. There are still questions I have and more that have been prompted by
this conversation and I look forward to talking with her more about her life.
My Grandmother’s Experience Being a Woman, As She Described it to Me Sydney Brinker “I was born at just the right time. The women’s movement, outside of the one that gave women the right to vote, didn’t really start until the 60s. There were lots of women who were really, really radical and we supported them. I was radical to a point. My parents thought I was radical, and, in my family, I’m known for being radical, but when I look at Gloria Steinem and all of her followers and the fun and stupid things they did, I don’t think I was radical at all. I first noticed the women’s movement in the mid-60s. 1964 is when I graduated from high school. The first inkling I had was probably learning about Jane Fonda. I was incredibly jealous of everything she was doing. So many women were in awe, wondering how she could travel the world. The next inkling was likely when I applied to college. The Feminine Mystique was required reading for admissions, though I don’t remember if the boys had to read it too.
My mother embodied the traditional housewife persona in many ways, but she was also able to do much
more than even the generations before her. For example, she had gotten a divorce. Growing up, I remember, art was always my first love. My parents didn’t know what to do with an artistic child so every Christmas, they allowed me to paint our dining room which faced the street. I would copy my favorite Christmas card – I started looking for potential cards in November – onto the window, not realizing that doing so was a talent. I thought that just painting an image from a card didn’t make me an artist, even if I did make it look good. At the end of the season, my dad would wash the painting off and I’d eagerly wait for the next year.
At the time, you were expected to go to college, but you didn’t go to college for art. Women, at least, also
weren’t told that they had to go to college to make a living. Instead, they were still going for their “M.R.S. degree.” It was strange though because you didn’t want anyone thinking you were going to college for your “M.R.S.” It was like, who were we trying to kid? If you did want to have kids but you also wanted to be a rebel, like me, you sort of got caught in the middle. The slogan of the time was “tune in, turn in, and drop out” – you tuned in with art and music and dropped out with drugs. That caused a problem with a lot of people in my generation. Art and music and record album covers were huge then, and so was graffiti. It was a movement. You didn’t always learn art the “right” way, but you learned it and loved it because of what was going on at the time. It was always “fuck this, fuck that, and every other swear word you could come up with.” Many of us later grew up and became “establishment,” but it was in a different way than previous generations. There were some who were really out
there and dedicated their life to the movement and then the rest of us picked up on it and did what we could.
I had a radical grandmother. She was “radical” because she was outspoken and well educated; she was
a teacher and then she became a postmaster, and no woman was a postmaster at that time. There might have been a handful across the United States. When the men went off to war, more postmaster positions opened up for women and it was during this time in the early 1940s, she got the job. I was born in 1946 and I remember when I was four years old, my mother had a photographer come to our house and take our pictures as a Christmas present for my grandma. I was excited because I got to wear my mother’s pearls. We got to do special things like this despite my mother being divorced. We didn’t have much money, but we always lived in a nice place. My mother was the kind of person that people would ask about her decorator. She never let anyone decorate her house though – it was all her.
Art was always really important. I loved beautiful things, even when I was younger and didn’t under-
stand them. I never quit doing art. Some of the first things I ever bought to decorate my own house were five prints including two Monets and Picasso’s “Guernica.” I loved “Guernica” and the abstract, asymmetric feeling of it, even before I knew the history of war behind it. The prints were good-size and people always noticed them when they came over. They’d say, “I didn’t know you were into art,” and I would reply, “Oh yes,” not realizing that the prints I’d picked out were of five very famous works. They were just images I thought were fabulous. That was part of growing up and learning in that environment where we didn’t have much, because we were busy tuning in and dropping out.
I wasn’t with the kids who completely dropped out. When you look back, most people weren’t. The West
Coast was known for people dropping out because of the “flower children” in San Francisco. Photography and art were everywhere. It started to be on buildings and in murals, and people didn’t necessarily get permission. There were certain places where it was accepted but in others, you could still be arrested. Psychedelic art especially was really in. It was all of the great colors of the 60s mashed together. It’s one of the reasons I love bright colors still. I never got into drugs. The only one I tried was pot and since I’m so little and hated smoking it, it didn’t go over well. They hadn’t started putting it in brownies yet or I would’ve gotten in a lot more trouble. At parties, I mainly just pretended to drink and smoke.
Most girls at the time were rebelling against what we’d always been doing. How would you like the choic-
es of being a secretary, a bank teller, a teacher? There were only about five jobs a woman could have. I knew one of them was a postmaster and postmasters made men’s salaries. The only reason I knew this was because my dad did well and was high up in civil service and my grandma, the postmaster, was only one pay grade below him,
and after a year or so, she moved up. My dad knew what his retirement was going to be in forty years and so did my grandmother. They’d compare these things and my grandma got everything my dad did. I heard these conversations and they just blew my mind. The fact it happened in my own family made me think that I could be anything I wanted to. Even if a whole bunch of jobs weren’t available to me now, I just looked at my grandmother. She made just as much money as my dad. Icons like Rosie the Riveter helped make it okay for women to have jobs like a postmaster, but it was a scandal in our town. Just because it was okay, didn’t mean people didn’t talk. I knew this from being a kid growing up, having a mother that was good about telling me things. That being said, my mother thought my grandmother was too radical because she didn’t always do things the way my mother would. I suspect though that my mother was a lot more radical than she let on: who gets sent to live with their aunt and uncle their senior year of high school? She was either out of control or pregnant and I would’ve known if she was pregnant. When I was growing up, the fear of god was getting pregnant because then your life was over. Around this time, the national divorce rate was skyrocketing but for our family, divorce wasn’t a new thing. In the late-1800s, my mother’s grandmother got divorced for reasons I can guess but don’t know for sure. Because she was divorced, her two boys had to live in an orphanage. She was allowed to stay at the orphanage with them on weekends but during the week, while working at a shirt factory, she lived alone. My grandmother got married while she was working as a teacher but eventually got divorced before becoming a postmaster. She chose to raise my mother on her own, which she could do because she was making a man’s salary. She told me a lot of things but never why she got divorced. When I later got a divorce from my childhood sweetheart, it was because I couldn’t be married to someone without a job. There was nothing wrong with him – he was a nice guy and came from a very kind family – but he quit his job at Boeing and lost the job my dad got him afterwards. My dad actually got my ex-husband’s mother a job at his office at the same time. It was a running joke in the office that she was his mother-in-law. While I noticed the teasing my dad got, I was just happy he was able to get her a job as she was more than qualified. It wasn’t until later I understood just how detrimental the jokes must’ve been to her.
I went on to get married a few more times. I just did not know how people did it. I ended up falling back
into art because of my kids. One of the community colleges in the area taught a class about starting a pre-school so some other moms in the area and I started a pre-school. A different parent would take the kids each morning for a new lesson. I, of course, did art. The kids taught me even more than I taught them. I studied artists to stay ahead, especially Picasso, because he spent most of his adult life trying to get back to the way children draw. My daughter painted a watercolor of the cover of one of the albums I owned, Janis Joplin’s Pearl. The music and art
went hand-in-hand in the 60s. Color was everywhere. I knew I was never going to give up art, and my kids were instrumental in that realization, but I had to always have a job. Their father dropped out, so I certainly couldn’t.
I have to say that I always seemed to find jobs fairly easily. My first job was working at the Seattle World’s
Fair in 1962. I was fifteen-and-a-half and wouldn’t have kids for about five more years. I loved that job because of how many people I got to meet from all over the world. I was just working a little beverage place, but it was a place everyone came. There was also a vast pavilion full of artwork from everywhere in the world, which made a huge impression on me. The next year, the Beatles came to Seattle which was also an incredible spectacle. During college, when I came home for the summer, I got a job at Virginia Mason Hospital where both of my kids were later born. I always tried to get jobs where there was an art collection and this one was no different. I then went to work for King County Medical which was an organization that doctors joined and they got all kinds of benefits and help because in school they learned how to be doctors; they didn’t know how to run an office or do the smaller jobs. I’d help doctors hire nurses and people to do their books or I’d show the doctors in larger companies what they needed to do to belong to the medical association. The doctors didn’t just need help setting up their offices. After that was done, it was “Can you tell me where to hang this?” At the hospital they had crews and carpenters, but the individual doctors and smaller clinics didn’t have the funding. That was a really fun job because I drove all over the city and bought my first car. I bought one previously from my mother, but I don’t think I paid much at all, so I don’t count that. Then, I got really into the women’s movement. In those days, everything I did had to do with the women’s movement, even getting my first job. You were always “fucking” something. You didn’t get paid as much. You learned to lie about what you made at your last job because otherwise they’d start you at the same amount and you wouldn’t get a raise for another year. In my second year of college, I lied to my mother’s doctor and told him I was married and needed birth control. These were the first pills out and you had to lie. I didn’t tell my mother and he was good – I don’t think he told her either. He definitely didn’t because I would’ve heard about it.
About a year-and-a-half after I started at Kings County Medical, I hit it off with a really nice doctor who
was only a couple of years older than me. He was a GP and probably 28 after getting out of medical school. I helped hire six people for his office and then he approached me with a job offer. He said that I was really good with people and wanted to hire me to be the abortion counselor at his clinic. The laws of the country had just changed – two states had fully repealed their anti-abortion laws, and Washington was one of them. I did have strong feelings about abortions because I’d grown up in a time when men decided everything for women and abortion is the last thing you want them deciding. I asked him why he wanted to hire me, and he said that he
saw how I handled his staff and this position called for someone very empathetic, someone who could talk a person in or out of something, depending on their individual circumstances. He’d already performed some abortions in Texas and even though they were safer here and the equipment had been modernized, he knew how the procedure went. I, on the other hand, had to learn everything once I accepted the job – and I did.
I learned by reading and talking to other people in the medical field, but it was truly something you had
to learn by doing. He was still a GP, so abortions were only performed on Saturdays and I kept my position at Kings County Medical while working with him. It wasn’t a terrible procedure, but it wasn’t something to make light of either. I soon learned that if a person was ambivalent about it beforehand, they wouldn’t do well during the procedure itself. I would hold their hand and remind them of the reasons they told me they were there or have them tell me. People who really didn’t want to go through with it – they were only there because their mother or boyfriend coerced them into it – it just didn’t work as well. They were scared and would clamp up, making the procedure much more difficult to get through. As an office, we wanted to help people. The doctor got into it because it was new, he was interested, and he wanted to help people. However, around a year later, one of the nurses I’d hired, and I had to leave.
Because we were the only state west of the Mississippi that could perform abortions, we’d have planes
coming from Denver and all over. We were performing at least fifteen abortions per day. It became clear that he was just doing it for the money now – it cost about $300. I knew that he likely had medical school debt, but it wasn’t good to be doing mass abortions just to be doing them, so I got out. I was just as happy to leave as I was to go into the job, but it made me have very strong feelings about abortions. I still believe in it. I still believe every woman should have the choice. This job is the perfect example of how I was radical. While other people were taking to the streets, I was sneaking around behind-the-scenes. Helping women have comfortable, safe abortions was a radical thing to do. I knew that if I was too outspoken in my position, I couldn’t get what I needed. My grandmother was my example.
After I quit the abortion counseling job, I ran off to Aspen, Colorado, the center of the ski universe.
Within two weeks I found a job at the local newspaper, Aspen Today. It was a small community paper, but the job was huge because everyone who came to Aspen read it, and there were many celebrities who came to ski. There were only a couple of women on the paper. I was good at sales and would also come back to the office at the end of the day to help create the ads. I didn’t know how to make ads, but I figured it out – there were special cutting tools and artist tape and the person working on typeface would provide all of the copy for you to paste
up. I really enjoyed the artistic aspect of that job. The art in Aspen was also a big reason why I loved the area. Wherever you have money, you have art.
I didn’t have much money, myself, but by the end of the abortion counseling job, I had enough saved up
to have the guts to move to Aspen. When I was rebelling, I always had to think, “I’m rebelling but I have two little kids.” So, I had to do it differently. The doctor had actually paid me very well – he paid all of his staff well – and this made it difficult to leave because I knew I was giving up a job with a salary that I couldn’t earn anywhere else without putting at least five years into the company. But I couldn’t work for someone who changed that radically, and, incidentally, he was a guy. I saw where he started off doing something because he thought it was the right thing but, by the end, he was taking advantage of it. That’s also when I got political. Nixon was running and Nixon was a slime bucket who didn’t care at all about women. When I eventually moved back to Seattle, I joined a large headhunting firm. I decided to get into human resources because for the first time, they were actually letting a couple of women in. It was another way for me to act behind-the-scenes. My mother, my poor mom, thought I was really radical. My whole thing though has always just been human rights, women’s rights, such as reproductive rights, maternity leave, equal pay, and preventing and punishing sexual harassment. That’s what I did and want to continue to do for the rest of my life.”
Intergenerational Mommy Issues FM
I did not speak to my mother for two years, from ages 16 to 18. We lived in the same house and I refused
to look at her or talk to her, and my father served as the intermediary means of communication between the two of us. I was briefly estranged for those two years following my forced hospitalization at the hands of my mother.
“I just want to make sure you’re safe!” she sobbed through her hands in that dingy hospital room.
Bullshit, I said, I will never forgive you for this.
These are probably words that all mothers dread to hear, but most have heard from their children during fights over curfews or clothing. I told her I would never forgive her for sending me away to a mental hospital. I could not care less if she thought she was ‘keeping me safe’ or ‘protecting me from myself;’ she was my mother and my mother was choosing to send me away to be locked up. It was around this time that I adopted the mindset that I was merely born to this woman and into this family, but she was not my mother because a mother is supposed to protect me, and this felt like the opposite. She was feeding me to the wolves who wanted to run tests on me and write endless prescriptions for medications which always underwhelmed.
My mother has always been a caretaker. It seems she filled this role naturally, but the role needed to
be filled by necessity. Born as the youngest of four children in Ludlow, Massachusetts in 1966, by the time my mother was eight years old, she was the only child left in the house. It was at this point in her childhood that my mother says she had to start parenting herself, as my grandmother had grown weary of her maternal role and “left [my mother] to fend for herself ”. My grandmother is a colder woman. It is clear to me (and my brother) that my mother is our grandmother’s least favorite child, despite my mom essentially being her parent’s caretaker in their elderly age. I can tell that my grandmother resents my mother, it is obvious in both the way my grandmother speaks to my mother and the way in which she speaks of my mother’s siblings that my mom has never been held in high esteem by her family. Despite this, family is something upon which my mother places great value. She says its “because [she’s] Italian and family is important to us Italians!”, but it feels like she is just looking for meaning and connection where she was denied it as a child. As that eight year old, she had to assume the role of her own parents, and she has said that it would have been easier if her mother had actually passed away because then she wouldn’t be forced to reconcile the fact that she was the one child who her mother chose to not parent. “It’s like I was half-assed abandoned… because she wasn’t dead, she
was just done. And I would eat dinner across from a woman who gave me up but still housed and fed me”. I felt similarly half-assed abandoned after I was discharged from the mental hospital; I still had somewhere to sleep and food to eat, but I did not have a mother anymore.
It is interesting to note that all the women on my mom’s side of my family work as caretakers. Whether
in education or literally as caretakers to the elderly, all of my female relatives have chosen to work in fields in which they are responsible for looking after other people. One of my aunts is a principal at an elementary school in Los Angeles, my other aunt is a teacher for deaf elementary school children in Atlanta, while my mother worked as a Special Education teacher for preschoolers. My cousins all work with preschool or elementary school aged children, and I also worked at a preschool for a period of time. I think it is interesting that all of these women have been free to choose their own careers, yet they all have gravitated towards professions that emphasize caretaking. In the case of my mom, she got her degree in education and started working as a Special Education teacher in the 1990s prior to the birth of my older brother. She continued working as a preschool teacher until I entered elementary school, when she pivoted to being more of a “stay at home soccer mom”. Both my brother and I needed her at that time, as we were both in elementary school and depended on her for practically everything because my father traveled weekly for work. Once my brother and I got to middle school and high school, my mother became terribly depressed and was on the verge of suicide for about a year. She tells me that one of the big reasons why she didn’t kill herself was because she “had two young children who needed [her]!”, although my brother was 14 and I was around 11 at the time. By no means were we independent, but the degree to which we were fully dependent on her was wavering. This was the year we got a dog: a creature who needed her, needed her love and attention, who would always depend on her (to some extent). If her children didn’t need her to take care of them, then she would raise the dog as her new surrogate-child.
I guess I have forgiven her, despite my promise in that hospital room that I never would. I have forgiven
her because I know she is not my mother, she never could be. She never really knew what a mother was, because she did not really get to experience a mother. My grandmother is an angry Catholic Italian whose mother died when she was five years old. My grandmother had to raise herself when my great-grandmother died, and my mother had to, in turn, raise herself when my grandmother didn’t want to be a mother anymore. It seems inter-generational mommy issues haunt my family. I know that my mother’s obsessive focus and over-prioritization of ‘Family Over Everything’ comes from her being that wounded child who was ‘half-assed abandoned’ for
reasons beyond her control or understanding at the time. I know that despite my grandmother’s verbal abuse towards my mother, my mom will still schedule her parents’ docto appointments, drive them to church or to the store, and help them around the house. I know she will continue to do these things because my mother needs to feel needed. That’s why she had her own children. She is an excellent caretaker because she is compassionate, empathetic, caring, and patient. She failed me as my mother because she couldn’t let me NOT need her anymore when I started to grow up. I do not look at my mom as my M.O.M., I look at her as someone who was also let down by her maternal figure.
My Aunt Lidia and the Right to the Female Orgasm Natasha Fradkin
Growing up, gender roles were always heavily enforced in my home. Albeit it was inadvertent. From
my mother studying to practice psychoanalysis for seven years and then never working because she followed my father to America for his work, to me staying in the kitchen to help her clean up dinner every night despite how much schoolwork I have while the men go to watch TV and do their homework, gender roles remain ever present in my life. For a long time, I was told that I had this role because I was the oldest, but when I was my brothers’ age things stayed the same. Deep down, I knew this wasn’t fair, but I would never contradict my father. It would be years before I spoke up for myself, saying that this was wrong. When I was ignored, I finally said that I wanted to go to therapy.
My parents were born in Peru and Argentina. My father was born an only child to two parents who
believed in ruling with an iron fist. My mother was born in Argentina, the youngest of three women, my grandmother also being one of three women. I thought that this would mean that I would be raised to think that women ruled the world. Being raised bi-culturally, I thought that maybe I would be raised to think that women can do whatever men can do, as is the general belief in America. I was not only wrong, but disappointed. Gender roles are ingrained in our culture, family, and language. Feelings of guilt, immorality, and submissiveness have plagued me since I became a teenager.
The dysfunctionality of my family also did not help; we have what can only be labeled “typical female
hysteria”, from the psychoanalytic point of view, running in our family. As it turns out, I recently found out that I have a maternal great aunt who is a sexologist. In a heavily gender ruled country, my aunt Lidia is a pioneer in her field. She works with patients and teaches sexology. Not only is she the only person in Argentina to teach this, but she is also a woman teaching a taboo subject. She raised two kids while becoming a professional, all without a man by her side. She lost her daughter to cancer in her early forties, and while she dated and lived with men, she never felt the need to remarry.
I asked her what it was like to be a pioneer in a taboo field in a heavily gendered country. She explained
to me that gender roles are what we create them to be; that gender is fluid, and that our sex is simply our biology, and even that can be changed. That is a very progressive stance to take from someone who lives in a country that
made a woman’s right to her own body—abortion—legal, only a few months ago.
My biggest take away from our conversation was when we talked about sex, female pleasure and sub-
missiveness. Much like we spoke about the “the perfect housewife” in Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, my aunt spoke about how that is a role that we are taught, and how we as women need to be taught to break free of that role. Being one step behind a man her whole life was clearly not my aunt’s strength, but she did have the courage to speak up about that need and divorce. Of course, as a sexologist, she translated this to how women do not speak up for their needs; the need to get out of the house, the need to go to therapy, and their needs in the bedroom. As her niece, and because I was taught that sex was a very private and special thing, it is far past awkward to actually speak about this. My aunt explained that one of the main reasons women come to see her is that they do not understand why they cannot orgasm via penetration. Of course, the Jean Dieleman scene came to mind. She explained that sexual disfunction is not only present in men, but also in women, and that is often harder to bring up. Women do not have a clear indicator of sexual desire as men do, so they do not see signs of sexual dysfunction. We also tend to not think of the lack of ability to orgasm as sexual dysfunction in women because they do not say that they want to orgasm. Again, Jean Dieleman is ever present. Her job as a sexologist is more than just explaining sex; she has to teach women about speaking about their needs and desires (operative, according to her), and coping with their partner. It’s awkward, of course, but she is absolutely correct. For women, from the ages of twelve to eighteen, sex is a hidden act to be ashamed of. From the ages of nineteen to twenty-four, sex is a drunken act to numb whatever is going on. Beyond that, sex tends to become all about procreation. Men get obvious pleasure, and that comes first (my aunt being extremely opposed to this). Where is the pleasure for the women? My aunt assures her clients that while being pregnant is lovely, that cannot be their only pleasure from sex, they deserve to orgasm.
I also asked my aunt about what it was like to be a woman teaching and practicing such a taboo profes-
sion. She had very little to say about this, because to her, sex isn’t taboo. Sex is an act of pleasure and reward to her. I was very shocked and amazed by this. I never thought that I would talk about female orgasms with a family member, possibly because I was taught that it “was not lady like.” I also never thought I would be so open to talk about it in a college class or paper, but she opened my eyes to something that was rarely talked about in my house growing up.
This was not a relationship I had a few weeks ago. As a matter of fact, when I found out I had an aunt who
was a sexologist I was not shocked. It was par for the course; what else could make my family more different? My
aunt is a hard worker, someone who has been through the worst situation that a mother can ever go through, yet she has dedicated her life to ensuring pleasure. She mentioned that gender roles are what we make of them, how could she not? She was both mother and father (though I do not think she views it that way) for a long time. When asked if she was a feminist, she said “I don’t know.” To her, this is natural, innate, and baffling that women still exist who cannot bring themselves to tell a man what they want.
Remembering Hélène Elena Gutierrez
My grandmother, Hélène Jolas Soper (1931-2019), is a behemoth in my mind. In many ways, she embod-
ied the 1950s stereotype of the American housewife: married at 20, held a secretary position for a scant three months before producing six children, worked full-time as a mother and homemaker for the next 30+ years while her doctor husband flourished in his career. There were the big white house with the screened-in porch; the dogs, the cats, the garden; the hot breakfasts and homemade desserts; the red lipstick on church Sundays – the works.
Hélène was not – however – your “typical” 1950s housewife. Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, she
was the only child of Jacques and Helen Elizabeth Jolas, both of whom were pianists and linked to modernist/ avant-garde circles. Hélène had an unusual and often lonely childhood surrounded by her parents’ coterie of artists, musicians, writers, and other intellectuals. Jacques was a Frenchman and concert pianist who had toured extensively throughout Europe and North America in the 20s and 30s; then, at age forty, he suffered a stroke which crippled his right hand, effectively ending his performing career. Thus, he poured everything into his only daughter.
Hélène felt enormous pressure from her father to pursue a career in music. Jacques was Hélène’s piano
teacher from a very young age, and at 16 she became a music major at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, IA where her father was a music professor. She was to be Jacques’ protégé and continue his musical legacy; he had even arranged for several performance opportunities in Europe following her graduation. However – the summer before her senior year – Hélène met Robert Soper (Bob), a young medical student. After just six weeks of “going steady,” they were engaged1. On one spring day at the end of the school year, my grandmother – aged twenty – graduated college in the morning and got married in the afternoon.
Jacques was openly hostile towards Hélène’s marriage with Bob. However, she became pregnant within
the first week of being married and went on to have three children within four years. All professional expectations from her father lapsed into the ether. By the end of the 60s, Hélène was mother to six children: four boys and two girls. And this was just what she had wanted.
For my grandmother, family was an escape. She had felt isolated as a child and dreamed of a big, loud,
happy family; for her, “the more, the merrier.” And her father, despite his high aspirations for her, was a controlling and at times terribly severe figure in her life. For me, it is ironic to consider my grandmother’s history while reading Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, about how so many young women in post-war America felt an incontestable push from their families and society to surrender themselves to their husbands and make babies. Hélène’s parents had had more progressive gender expectations than mainstream opinions of the time, but it did not change the fact that she was still being forced into a life she did not want. Hélène adored being a mother. And although family was her escape, there was more she wanted to do, and more she did do. In my own mother’s words: “She was different compared to other moms. She was so well-read, so educated, full of life, always had interesting things to say.” In the 70s, Hélène went back to school and got a degree in education. She started student teaching while her youngest was in kindergarten and some of the older children were in middle school. Her husband Bob was supportive of this decision, but his work schedule at the hospital did not allow him to show her any tangible relief from her motherly duties. Hélène was still expected to clean the house, pack the lunches, do the laundry, and have dinner on the table. As before, she was the one to do it all: this time, with the pressures and obligations of an additional full-time job. Unfortunately, the stress was too much, and she stopped student teaching.
My mother says: “That plan was thwarted, but realistically it wouldn’t have been possible without hired
help anyways; it was too exhausting.” My grandmother would have made an incredible teacher, but she continued her “teaching” through a long, extended motherhood that expanded to include international students, grandchildren (and great-grandchildren), and members of the community. She was involved in various clubs, volunteered extensively, and became the adopted grandmother to a Laotian refugee family. Later on she was president of the residents’ board of her nursing home. Hélène always wanted to keep her mind involved; “She was never bored, ever. She was busy, always on her feet,” says my mother. “She was such a Pollyanna. She really made the best of it. She stuffed a lot down inside, but was never one to look back; she never dawdled in self-pity and knew when to give herself a swift kick in the pants.”
In my eyes, Hélène’s life was usual and unusual. Her path as a wife and mother was typical for a young
woman of the 1950s, but her upbringing, demeanor, and the circumstances surrounding her decision to take that path were not. Though it is contrary to what I might have wanted for my future, I understand her desire to break the mold that was set before her by her father. I admire her grit, spirit, and commitment to her family. On the same note, it saddens me that when she wanted to move in a new direction, she did not receive the support she needed to fully execute that maneuver. In a way, Hélène eventually did become trapped by the expectations
of wife and mother, though initially that role held the promise of freedom. People’s lives are incredibly nuanced, and the “big events” or highlights do not always define them. On paper, my grandmother’s life may seem to have lacked professional accomplishments; however, you would never have gotten that impression from speaking to her. Hélène was dynamic, eclectic, humorous, warm, and sharp as a tack. Yes, she was mother and wife, but there was always a greater fire residing beneath the surface.
1
When the two roused Bob’s father in the middle of the night to deliver the happy news, he took one look at Hélène and said: “Well!
She’ll breed strong.”
Interview with My Grandma Kala Herh
My grandma’s name is Shouyu Wang. She was born in Kunming, Taiwan to immigrant parents. Her dad
was a chemical engineer who fled China during the Communist Revolution. Her mother passed away when she was only a child. For most of her young adult life, she was the household’s primary caretaker. Since her dad was at work, the responsibilities fell on her -- she cooked, washed dishes and took care of her siblings. However, she shared that these duties weren’t so much an obligation, but a necessity. At the time, she considered her family pretty progressive: her dad fostered her early interest in learning and her older brother executed the goal as he helped her with her school work. In fact, she contributes her current success to this paternal support and encouragement to spend her free summers taking business courses. Now, my grandma runs a successful slew of hotels in Moab, Utah with my grandpa.
My grandma went to an all-girls high school, where she took all the typical general education cours-
es: history, English, geography, math, chemistry and physics (her least favorite). When she wasn’t helping out the family, she participated in after school activities like jump rope and juggling. My grandma later shared that everyone at her high school went to college, like they do today. Popular majors at the time were business and journalism. Although my grandma said she liked the accounting class she took over the summer, my grandma decided to study Home Economics. While the classes required for the degree were biology, personal finance, clothing design, knife skills, and basic nutrition, she assures me it wasn’t a “MRS. Degree.” Instead she insists that the degree was for someone who wanted to work at hospitals or as a nutritionist.
During the summer of 1959, my grandma placed into an advanced accounting class, where she learned
money management, financial recording and the best practices for small businesses. It was her father who encouraged her to take the test and ultimately attend the university-run course. She agreed, thinking that it would help push her career forward and provide transferrable skills. It was actually in that business class where my grandma met my grandfather. While this two-month summer course was split by gender, there were social events where the two gendered classes could mingle. They ultimately married a few years later, in 1966, when my grandma graduated from college. At the same time, my grandpa had just graduated law school at one of the best academic institutions in Asia. Both equally ambitious and eager to do something bigger with their lives, they moved to the United States in 1973.
With them also came three children, one of whom was my mom. Early on my grandma instilled the same
beliefs she had been accustomed to into my mom and her siblings. Having just arrived in the country, they had to learn English quickly. Additionally, my grandma fostered a deep importance of education in her children. She told me that she never thought the basic accounting skills she acquired when she was 17 would come in handy, but they did. While my grandpa was working the business side of their company, my grandma was running the back of the house operation (managing property utilities, working HR and creating worker pay slips). She did all this on top of managing a business and taking care of her young children. As my grandma shared these anecdotes, my mom chimed in and said she still doesn’t understand how my grandma was able to tend to all her business needs and still have dinner ready by 7 PM.
To this day, my grandma -- who is about to turn 79 -- is still working to keep the family business alive.
When I look back at her life and all the things she shared during this brief hour-long conversation, the one thing that stands out the most is her deep maternal love. This love insured that her children were tended to and had all their needs met while she still pursued her own dream. And it is this trait that I want to take with me as I grow.
Unknown to Me Alison Kim
I was nervous when we got this assignment because I knew that the interview would be frustrating since
my mom and I have different views on things. My mom grew up in South Korea, where there were many expectations of a woman. She must take care of her husband’s grandparents during the holidays, she must have breakfast, lunch and dinner prepared for her husband. She must take good care of her children and the home. These main expectations were met by my mom, but with a grudge. My mom, still to this day, hates to cook whereas my father loves to eat. It’s a terrible duo, and it makes my mother suffer three times a day. But that is the life of a Korean lady, she would probably say.
I asked my mom her thoughts on the qualities that make a perfect woman. I had hoped that she would
tell me how dumb my question was, that there was no ‘perfect’ woman but she answered with confidence, “A perfect woman is a woman that is successful and takes good care of her children.” I asked, “What is successful in your eyes?” She said, “Successful enough to be content but not too successful where she overpowers a man.” This answer, as shocking as it is, didn’t surprise me. Throughout my life, I would hear how certain actions were unfeminine, like putting my foot on the chair or having a messy room. Although I was criticized for not having the best habits, I didn’t not understand why she would bring in my gender. I would always brush off my mom’s words, but this time I asked why. Why does she think like this? Why does she have such disdain for women wanting more? My mom said that a woman that wants to be like man is unattractive because men think that ‘those kinds’ of women are unattractive. I couldn’t understand her, I still can’t. But I feel like she doesn’t understand why she believes that either. I asked her again and told her to answer what she thought, not what men thought and she looked so confused and she couldn’t think of anything.
And so I asked her, “then what about me, what if I want to become successful to a point where I am the
best in my field?” She said, “When you’re not married it’s okay to want to be successful, but being too successful while married will cause problems in the relationship and end badly. A man doesn’t like a woman who is fighting on his territory. Society doesn’t like it. In the end it is only the woman that will face hardships and come out being disappointed. A woman who wants what she wants is selfish.” I said, “Why is that selfish?” “Because a woman has expectations to society and as although it will be a burden for her, she must carry them through. If a woman has a child, she must take care of it because it is her job, her duty.” I asked, “What about men, can’t he
take care of the kids?” “The man’s priority is to go to work, make money for the family. It is a woman who gives a child life so she needs to take care of it. If the roles are reversed the woman and man will get scolded by society, her parents, the in-laws, everyone around them. Being a woman is tiring, but so is being a man trying to be successful for his family.” “But why can’t women be the ones providing?” I asked. “Because men are men, they are strong, women can’t beat them, look at every industry, they are mostly filled with men. Society has made it so men work and women don’t, so we should follow it.” Things to know about my mom: she’s fierce, creative, smart, stubborn. She’s a fashionista, she’s got spirit, and she’s beautiful. I have always seen her as someone who got everything she wanted, someone who was determined about making her way into the world. She would always talk about wanting to make a clothing line and would always ask me to work with her. This side of her, someone who has goals for her life, this is the woman I look up to. My mom is the strongest woman I know, but during the interview she felt so distant from me. I was looking at someone who I had known my whole life, but I didn’t seem to know her. I didn’t know that she believed that women should be beneath men. I got angry because she took the woman as ‘the other’ as a fact, because nobody had told her differently, because I can’t change her mind. But I was also more angry at myself, that I had never taken the time to try to understand her and why she is always nagging at me to be more lady-like. I think she was scared that I would be treated harshly by the world if I didn’t embrace femininity. When she was my age, she was in art school because her dream was to be a fashion designer, I thought. I had found out that she wanted to major in industrial design, but her advisor had stopped her and said that she couldn’t because women were not allowed to be in that major. The advisor had chosen textiles for my mom instead, since it was much more feminine. These types of experiences probably led her to this view on women and I can’t help but feel sorry that I never knew this side of her.
It’s frustrating to know that my mom understands that there is gap between a woman and man, but
doesn’t question the gap. As much as I disagree with her perspective, I think she hates that she thinks like that too. When I asked if there were stereotypes in Korea, she said of course, why do you think I made us move here? She wanted my sister and I to have more opportunities, to not be confined to the home. I guess she didn’t want us to end up being defeated like she did.
Celine
Jenny Kim “Not always easy to be a woman.” — Celine, and countless others
For this assignment, I spoke to my godmother Celine. Celine was born in South Korea in the early 1970s.
There were more than a thousand girls in her graduating class, but less than forty percent of those girls attended college. Instead, most of the girls chose to get married and have children. Celine attended university and held various jobs throughout her college years, from playing the piano at concerts and restaurants, to working at her school’s admissions office. After college, she worked at City Hall. Given that the jobs women could obtain were usually limited to assistants or secretaries, her job was distinct. She found her work interesting, but frustrating, for her bosses complimented her work while taking credit for her contributions. Celine soon realized that her chances of advancing in her workplace were slim. She was called talented, yet never promoted. So, at 26, my godmother decided to leave Korea and immigrate to Canada. She applied for a study abroad program in a Canadian university. She recalls that when she told people she would be moving to Canada to continue her education there, the comments she got most often were: “Why are you going through all that? You can just get married and live comfortably here!” or “Why do you want to go to school again? You don’t need to!” or “When will you be returning to get married?” To her, these remarks and questions were absurd. Her experience working throughout college and after graduation made her value the freedom she had from being financially responsible, and she did not see why she would marry if she had the opportunity to live the life she wanted. Celine understands why most women got married right out of high school or did not want to work at all even after college— at the time, it was simply the norm for women to marry and have kids. She also understood why some of her friends married even if they did not necessarily want to; they needed to marry in order to survive because career prospects for women were so slim.
I asked her why, if it was the norm for women to believe that their only roles and possibilities were be-
coming mother or wife, she chose to go to college, work, and even move to a foreign country to study and work? How did she think that she, as a woman, could do what any man can do, when this was not the norm? Of course, for my generation, it is the norm that we pursue an education and a career. But if this was not the norm of my generation, I am not sure if I would go to college or considering working. I wondered what inspired her to see
and believe beyond what was thought “normal” for women at the time in Korea. Had she read Betty Friedan in her youth and been inspired to live a life beyond the household? (She said no, she had not read it then). Celine credits her father who, like her, was unique at the time because he did not believe that she had to live a different life than a man. He genuinely believed that it was absurd to consider males and females to have drastically different aspirations if they were human. He also thought that society as a whole would benefit from the contributions of women. He encouraged her to get an education and work to support herself. What Celine’s father told her seems obvious today, but for him to both believe that men and women were equally capable was prescient for Korea in the 1970s and 80s. Even today, Korea remains a deeply patriarchal society where women are expected to stay home or give up their careers after having children (of course, Korea is not the only country where this is the norm).
Celine now owns multiple businesses, yet despite her own successes, she thinks that very little has
changed since she was my age. She remains hopeful, but ultimately concluded that we have a long way to go in achieving equality for men and women. For instance, there have been countless times when her clients were surprised after meeting her for the first time. Why? Because her clients expected a man to show up, not a woman. (Her Korean name is not traditionally a female name, thus not revealing her gender). She also noted that women nowadays are expected to be superwomen. She is not a mother herself (she did not want to have children of her own as this would derail her professional life), but sees how challenging it is for women to be working professionals and mothers. Working mothers, she says (and as we know) are expected to juggle it all— they must be perfect mothers and succeed professionally.
Celine disapproves of the distinct upbringing girls and boys have. From a young age, girls are told about
the wonderful mothers they will one day become. To be clear, she is not disparaging motherhood. She simply wonders why girls are instilled to believe that they must marry and raise a family, while boys do not have to worry about this at all unless this is what they want. Women, she says, are constantly thinking about marriage. Some of the most successful female friends in her life were, at one point, all concerned about not dating or finding a suitable husband. Again, she does not undermine the importance of family or motherhood, but wants to understand why women fundamentally believe that motherhood is their greatest responsibility, and questions why they are pressured to become a wife or a mother without getting the opportunity to think about whether this is something they even want. At this point in our conversation, she again emphasized how men and women are, to this day, held to different standards. She told me a story about her friend Emily, a successful corporate lawyer.
Five years ago, however, she got a divorce, and a longtime client of hers left her to go to another firm because of a personal matter in her life. I found this ridiculous but Celine and Emily, though angry, were not surprised. Women must embody all adjectives all the time in the workplace. People like Emily’s client (an older male) want women to be smart, capable and competent, in addition to being personable and ultimately conform to, for the lack of better words, the vision of the female that a man has (so in essence, be intelligent and fit the male gaze of a beautiful, feminine, non-divorced woman).
Celine, who has now read Betty Friedan, ultimately believes that while we have made progress in achiev-
ing equality for women, she recognizes too much of what she read in Friedan’s writing. Of course, though women today do not just read magazines or think all day about what household products to buy like they did in the 1950s, women still perform the majority of household work whether they work or not. The media is still infiltrated with the vision of an ideal woman— skinny, beautiful, bubbly, mysterious, charming but not too outgoing— that young girls continue to aspire to be. Yes, she states, there are countless inspiring women, but there are still far too women in positions of power, whether it is in business or politics, for example, compared to the women are who seeking an education and career. Her final message for me was that if women are truly to be equal to men, girls must stop being inundated with messages of motherhood and marriage throughout their entire upbringing.
Eileen’s Story Max Kingsley
Speaking on the phone with my grandmother, I learned much more about her life experiences than I had
previously cared to ask. She was born in Flint, Michigan in 1943, just a few years before the end of World War II. Like most of the women who were born in the years preceding or following the second world war, my grandmother was conditioned to believe that her primary purpose as a woman was to be a dutiful wife and loving mother. This is not to say that she was discouraged from pursuing a career, or that she was not motivated to find success in any avenue other than childbearing and homemaking. In fact, my grandmother is one of the hardest working, busiest, and most active people I know. However, she was taught from a very young age that all of her means led to the same end. More specifically, while she was allowed and even encouraged to pursue an education and maintain career goals, they were limited in that she was obligated to find and sustain a career that also enabled her to care for a husband and children.
My grandmother told me that, growing up, none of the women she knew even considered the possibility
of becoming doctors, dentists, lawyers, politicians, or astronauts. In fact, it was unheard of for a woman in the Jewish suburbs of Flint to publicly want to pursue these professions. This was not because they did not have the intellectual capacity or the necessary perseverance to fully commit to and find success, but because the society within which they were raised had conditioned them to believe that they could not possibly have both a successful career and a happy family. Thus, in her time, women’s career aspirations were significantly cappedthey could dream to be dental hygienists, but not dentists; secretaries but not lawyers; nurses but not doctors.
My grandmother told me that her parents were always supportive of her educational endeavors, and that
they actually encouraged her to go off to college and pursue a career in teaching. She explained to me that at the time, teaching was the ideal profession for women. It required limited to no physical labor, and it allowed women to finish their work at the same time that their children finished school. In essence, to be a teacher was the quintessential career choice for women because it enabled them to both sustain a job that made money, and to raise children without making any familial sacrifices. She could thus prepare the children’s breakfast and lunches, take them to the school (where she also worked), drive them home when school was finished, and still have the rest of the afternoon to clean the house, cook dinner, and fulfill any other household chores.
Because my grandmother’s career aspirations were limited to becoming a teacher, and because (at the
time) teachers were not required to have a full college education before finding work, my grandmother was defi-
nitely not the most motivated college student. In fact, she may have been more committed to finding a husband than she was to earning decent grades. She told me that during her freshman orientation (the summer before she moved to college), she met a cute boy with whom she “felt a spark.” After some flirtatious conversation, it was actually discovered that they lived in nearby towns, and so the pair decided that at 1pm on the last day of their orientation, they would hitchhike home together (oh, how idyllic suburban 1950s Michigan sounded!) However, there was a catch. My grandmother had an English placement exam on the last day of her orientation, scheduled for 1pm. So what did she do? Well, she did what anyone in her same position would have done. She intentionally “Christmas-tree’d” (which means choosing random answers in the shape of a Christmas tree) the answer sheet, flunked the exam, and still made it on time to hitchhike home with her new boy-friend. Of course that landed her in a remedial English class the following semester (a class which, according to her professor, she was much too advanced for). However, her educational status did not matter so much- to her. The most significant aspect of her college experience was finding a husband.
This remained true throughout the rest of her three years at the University of Michigan. She met my
grandpa (an older man and college graduate) her junior year, and she dropped out shortly thereafter because his job required they move far from the school. Rather than committing herself to continuing her education, she did what most women would have been conditioned to do: she sacrificed a large part of her own life for her husband. She actually did end up working as a teacher, however, although she never earned a real degree, teaching small classes of young children at a two-room schoolhouse a few towns over (again, how idyllic life sounded back then). She eventually stopped working because she became pregnant with my mom, thus fully completing her transformation from young woman to mature housewife. She had two more children and did not work outside the home until they were all grown up and off to college.
After selling my grandpa’s popular chain of Michiganian donut joints (called Don’s Donuts), my grand-
parents moved down to Florida where they opened a travel agency (which they later sold for a significant sum of money). Although my grandpa died over a decade ago, my grandmother continues to actively work at the same travel agency. At 77 years old, she still lives in Boca, plays cards with her girlfriends, wins golf tournaments at her country club, goes on sailing excursions with her boyfriend Mickey, trades stocks, and takes joy-rides in her cherry-red Tesla.
She’s had several boyfriends since my grandpa died, but her role in these relationships
differs significantly from the role she occupied in her marriage. In her new relationships, my grandma is actually the breadwinner. This is not to say that her current boyfriend Mickey is a submissive partner, but he’s certainly
not the one whipping his credit card out at fancy dinners. That’s her job.
A Tribute to my Grandmothers Shelby Kraut
When this paper was first assigned, I immediately knew that I wanted to interview both of my grand-
mothers. I am extremely fortunate to have two living grandmothers, and two remarkable role models at that. Their experiences are very different, and both are a huge inspiration to me in different respects.
My maternal grandmother Essi is sunshine personified. She is the sweetest, most caring person I know.
She also had an extremely difficult upbringing. Essi was born in Shanghai, China as a Jewish WWII refugee. Her family was from Germany, and when her father was taken to the concentration camps they were able to find a way for the family to leave the country with only the clothing on their backs. The early years in the ghettos of Shanghai were dark-- my grandmother recounted walking home from school and seeing dead bodies littered on the street in the days after the bombings. Her biological father passed away when she was only about 2 years old. When she was about 8 years old, the family was able to move to America. Her mother was an extremely strong and hardworking woman, in addition to being twice widowed. She was the breadwinner for the family, and Essi recalls her grandmother walking over from her apartment to get her and her sister ready for school and make them breakfast and dinner while their mother was at work. This was a family where the women took charge, simply because there wasn’t much of a choice. In school, Essi recounted going to classes for just girls that were focused on cooking, cleaning, and sewing skills. She got her first job at the age of 11, working at a toy store, and didn’t stop working until she had her first child. She met my grandfather, her prince, when she was around 17, working at the grocery store. They fell in love and continued to date while he attended college and eventually was drafted into the army reserves. They were married three days after he got back from the army, and moved into my grandfather’s family home while they got on their feet. After about a year they got their first apartment of their own, and about 9 months later their first daughter Karyn was born. For her first year of life her crib was in their bedroom, until they were able to buy a home. Soon after, my mother Dawn and later her brother Andrew were born. My grandmother devoted her life to giving them a carefree, idyllic childhood, one that she never had the privilege to experience herself. Each of her children grew up to have two children of their own, and my grandmother is truly a force that holds our family together. Things have changed since Covid, but growing up every summer our family would get together at the Jersey shore and enjoy each other’s company, held close by the
gravity that is my grandmother’s love. She would make us brunch in the morning, dinner every night, and a feast of desserts, making sure everyone’s favorite dessert was included, just for them. From afar, she has continued to knit us an almost incomprehensible amount of garments, even knitting clothes for her future great grandchildren. Gratitude does not begin to scratch the surface of how I feel for her.
My other grandmother, Florence, is an equally remarkable woman. She grew up in Queens, the child of
first generation immigrants. Much of her large family lived in the same area, so she grew up playing with her many cousins. Although not a lot of thought was given to the professional potential of the girls in the family, my grandmother remembers it as a family where women’s opinions were heard and taken seriously. Although gender roles were still at play, the women in the family were sharp and strong willed. My grandmother and all of her 27 cousins were the first generation in her family to go to college. She majored in English and went on to work in journalism. Along the way she met my grandfather and they fell in love and eventually got married. Around the time Florence had her first child, my grandfather bought her a copy of The Feminine Mystique as a gift, which she describes as a hugely eye opening turning point. Together they moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, which at the time was a hub for feminist activity. Florence connected with the community and found many like-minded women, and ended up joining the Women’s Strike for Peace group. Together the group discussed feminism and took political action in various ways, including going up against the “Un-American Activities Committee,” likely earning my grandmother a spot on the FBI watchlist (a veritable badge of honor in my book.) After a while in Ann Arbor they moved back to Queens, where she found her female peers to be less aware of and/or on board with the feminist movement. When it was time to buy their first home they moved out of the city to the suburb of Rye, where Florence was able to once again find a feminist community to connect with. They held consciousness raising groups once a week where they discussed a different topic at each meeting. She also was involved in the Jewish women’s group Hadassah. At home, Florence and her husband Allen made a conscious effort to raise their male and female children to participate equally in the household chores, forming an alternating Cooking Crew and Cleaning Crew. After spending some time as a stay at home mom, my grandmother decided to go back to school in 1974 for her social work degree. She went on to have a long and fulfilling career in social work, eventually becoming the head of her agency. Even in her retirement, my grandmother continues to be one of the busiest people I know. She recently published a fantastic novel, which was received with huge success. Her schedule has remained fairly packed through quarantine, from educational Zoom seminars to virtual family game nights. I know I speak for all of my family when I say that my Bubbe Florence is an absolute force of nature who
continues to inspire us all.
I am truly so thankful for this opportunity to talk in depth with my grandmothers about their experienc-
es. I ended up learning a lot of details that I didn’t know before, and I know I will cherish these stories forever. Though their experiences are very different from each other, both of my grandmothers are absolutely feminist role models in my life. I am so blessed to have not only one but two warm, wonderful matriarchs of the family in my life to look up to and learn from.
Grandma Nita: A Woman’s Experience Jaiden Sanchez
I never got to meet my maternal grandmother and I’m not on particularly good terms with my paternal
step-grandmother. I also haven’t been close to any of my aunts in the past few years since we live so far from each other and they don’t reach out anymore. Needless to say, I wasn’t really sure who to interview. So, I decided to interview someone out of my circle, her name is Juanita Tso and she’s the mother of my mom’s girlfriend. Juanito Tso (or Grandma Nita) is a recently retired teacher. She grew up on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico. Her father left her family when she was 2 years old, leaving her mother to raise her and her sister. Grandma Nita said that she spent a lot of time with her grandparents, who were very traditional and only spoke Navajo. Her mother worked and encouraged her to continue her education, yet her grandmother often chastised her for not staying home and acting “like a proper lady” -- which, traditionally, meant staying home and helping to take care of her family and eventually raising a family of her own, and not leaving to pursue an education.
Yet she did just that. She left to attend Grand Canyon College (now Grand Canyon University) at 16
years old (she later transferred to Northern Arizona University). She told me that not many women went to college, especially indigenous women who would follow traditions because of family pressures or because they simply couldn’t afford an education. “I know about people, about life on the reservation. Women were expected to be home and not do anything.” She understood her privilege, since she received financial support for college from her stepfather. Her mother had remarried and her husband happened to have a profitable business; he encouraged his stepdaughter to pursue her education, especially since there weren’t any scholarships for indigenous peoples available back then. She recalls that there were several obstacles and limitations she faced at school; many things were not available for women. Courses for women were mostly trade skills such as working in an office as a secretary, or doing clerical work, or being a beautician. Not to mention that mostly men played sports, which was disheartening as she loved sports. Many students became business majors, which she didn’t want to do. She thought about being a nurse, but the following year she went into Education at NAU, following her sister. Her focus was on multi-cultural education, and she then received a graduate degree as well in English as a Second Language.
When I asked if she was aware of the feminist movement, Grandma Nita said she had heard about fem-
inism and the movement. She understood the social expectations of women staying in the home and not work-
ing, and she wanted to prove this belief wrong. So, when it came time to raise her own family, she instilled the belief in the pursuit of education. She got married at 19, which she recalls was a struggling time as she juggled school and also raising children, studying for long hours into the night and even crying. After three children she ended up getting divorced, but she didn’t let that deter her. Accomplishing her achievements made her feel like an example when everyone thought she couldn’t do it. She wished the same for her children, telling her two daughters (of a total of eight children) especially, “I want you to get your education and have a real profession someday.”
Surprisingly, Juanita’s story is similar to my mom’s. My mother had a dysfunctional home life and lived
in poverty. She had to grow up quickly and help raise her siblings, working at a young age and putting herself through school while having kids. My mother had me at 21 years old and my siblings came later. I remember her working multiple jobs and the bags under her eyes. She tells me now that she used to cry to herself, but she never let us see that. She was able to come up and lay a foundation for herself. She went to college and graduated while raising four children as a single parent (our father passed away when I was 10). Even now, she is currently working on her Master’s degree to go further in her field of social work, focusing on indigenous communities. My mom, just like Grandma Nita, also pushed my siblings and I to pursue our education. She even helped set me up for taking college courses in high school and getting me involved in our own indigenous community (the Tohono O’odham Nation). And here I am now in New York, going farther thanks to the foundation women like my mother and Grandma Nita laid.
All together, these experiences have been enlightening for me; I now realize how good I have life, espe-
cially from a female standpoint. I see how easily my mom’s life or my Grandma Nita’s life could have been similar to Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique statistics and the Jeanne Dielman film where women are homemakers, not pursuing their interests and going stir crazy. Even now, my female friends and I differ as I have full support, both emotionally and financially, for attending college whereas many of my other friends back home (and here at NYU) struggle with those things. Feminism as a whole has been an interesting topic for me to discover and re-learn from the basic “women got voting rights” history taught in my public school. This interview has, again, been enlightening to me as well as motivating. When I asked Grandma Nita what advice she had for women, especially indigenous girls, she said “Number 1, respect yourself. Then, hold your head up no matter what’s coming around you, keep walking towards your goal, because there is no guarantee that life is going to be easy, but you can fight with education.”
My Mother: The Exception, Not The Rule Lauren Stone
My mother is quite a unique person. She is the most eccentric, loving, caring and crazy lady I know. The
stories she tells me about her past make me wish I had been there myself, to experience it with her. She did not have the easiest time growing up, but it made her into the strong, independent woman I look up to. She accomplished so much in her life and managed to give her family everything we ever wanted, with my dad by her side.
Her parents were divorced before she could really remember them ever being together, which meant
that she saw her father every other Sunday and relied on her mother for most things. Her mother went back to work when my mother and her twin brother were seven years old. Before children, my grandmother was a buyer for Bloomingdales, but when she went back into the work force she got a job as an assistant buyer for Macy’s, a small step down from where she was before. Soon after she began working, my mother began to take notice of how her mother was the only working mother in her entire friend group. She would spend lots of time with her friends and their family, and seemed to notice how the fathers were always the ones working and making money, and the mothers were the ones staying home. But for my mother’s family, her mother was the bread winner. She worked and provided for my mother and uncle the best that she could. My mother likes to tell me about when she would go visit her mother at work and see how much respect she would get. My mother saw my grandmother working as a very exciting and extremely aspirational accomplishment. Her mother was her role model.
Growing up with a twin brother, she noticed certain differences between their experiences as children.
Her brother would be given baseball cards, while my mother got easy bake ovens. In school, boys were offered classes like woodshop and metal shop, all things my mother was extremely interested in, but she was never given the same opportunity as her brother to take those classes. My mother was a part of the baby boomer generation -- a group of kids eager to learn and experience the world, especially the women who wanted different lives from the housewives of the 50s, their parents’ generation. When my mother began school at Union College, she was a particle physics major, an area she had become fascinated by because her friend’s father was a physicist. My mother quickly realized that she would be the only woman in her physics classes, filled with egotistical men who belittled my mother’s abilities. She said she felt extremely unwelcome and not encouraged by any of the boys in her class. Later on in the year, she realized that she may not have much of a career in particle physics. She soon
changed majors because of a lack of job opportunities and the toxic male-dominated atmosphere she had experienced. A few years later, she found herself at Brown University as a semiotics major. At Brown, she faced no discrimination, only realized that “all semiotics professors were assholes.” But that did not stop her from achieving her goals and graduating with a degree from Brown.
In her last year at Brown, she met my father. He was doing a one year graduate program there and soon
after they realized their platonic relationship wouldn’t work. My mother always told me about the boyfriends she had before my father. She was even engaged once before! But she always reminds me to find a person who treats me the same way my father has always treated her. From the start of their relationship, he always put her on an even playing field, complete equals in their relationship. He even later picked up his life in NYC and moved to Los Angeles for the great job opportunity my mother had been given. “Every guy was basically a narcissist until I met your father.” Boy, was I glad she chose him over the others.
My mother had an extremely worthwhile and impressive career working in advertising and television
and movie production. In her many different career moves, she always got the utmost respect that she deserved. Working in the ad agency, she always said she was “treated with respect because [she] represented money.” In the production companies, she experienced the same. She was aware of the male-dominated work forces she was involved with, but always held her head high and fought to promote her agendas just like everyone else. She was given so much support by the people she worked with, but knew discrimination did exist in her career path. She likes to say “I was the exception, not the rule.” She was very lucky to have such a fulfilling and successful career. She truly is a role model for me and so many young girls trying to make it in a male-dominated world.
I am so impressed by the life my mother has built for herself and our family, with my father always by
her side. I am so grateful for my parents and will always look up to my mother as my true role model in life. As the days go on, I even see myself becoming her mini-me. Maybe that’s just because I now wear all of her old clothes. But deep down, I know I am my mother’s daughter, and I would not want to be anyone else.
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