Women of Influence, THE COMMUNITY REPORTER, November, 2013

WOMEN OF INFLUENCE

An Essay by Deborah McWatters Padgett

This morning I watched a commentary on CBS Sunday Morning in which the commentator made the point it’s about time we see some women’s images on the face of United States Currency.   As I watched and listened she listed maybe fifteen or twenty women she considered representative of the women we might see depicted.  The story made me think about the women of influence in my own life and, further, who are the women of influence in the lives of my daughters and their generation? Who will be the women whose lives influence my granddaughters?

What are the names of women who inspire you and who you want to inspire your daughters?  Some of my peers have suggested that our daughters are unaware of the hard-won freedoms of their mothers and their mother’s mothers.  I’ve wondered if that’s not the case even in my own family.

When I was in my twenties I relied on the presence in my life of contemporary women like Germaine Greer, Betty Freidan, Gloria Steinem, Marlo Thomas, Diane Carrol, Dionne Warwick, Mother Theresa, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou.  SESAME STREET, FREE TO BE YOU AND ME and MS. MAGAZINE helped me show my daughters there would be no second-class citizen-ship forced upon them.  In our household we did not hold with gender-specific toys, colors or clothing.  We often read aloud the story BABY X with the idea that boys and girls required an open door to becoming whatever and whoever they had it in them to be.

When I was a young woman there were Women’s support groups available to a whole range of women in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas.  We met in each other’s homes.  Some of us were Black, Asian, Hispanic, White, Lesbian, married, single, mothers, educated, employed, public-assisted, divorced, religious, atheists, anti-war, members of the military…  We were a broad (Seriously, no pun intended!) and inclusive group.   My association with these women led to my awareness of the women who came before me.  Women like Anais Nin, Adrienne Rich, Virginia Woolfe, Kate Chopin, Edith Wharton, Harriet Tubman, Zora Neale Hurston and Eleanor Roosevelt became my role models. 

I was a single parent with a poverty level income when I started to attend the University in 1974.   I received minimal child-support from my baby’s dad and I babysat and worked part-time painting apartment interiors to support my child and myself.   At that time there was a Women’s Studies option on campus as well as a Women’s Help Center.  Courses taught on campus received scrutiny by those in charge to be certain the offerings were inclusive ¾ not lauding one gender over and above the other.  It was required that courses reach in the direction of gender and racial equality.  Through the Women’s Help Center I gained access to affordable housing, food stamps, health care assistance, childcare and a Pel Grant as well as other financial aid and was able to enroll in these egalitarian course offerings.  My studies opened my eyes, changed my life and broadened and deepened what I am able to bring to my world. 

I came of age during a time when girls were not allowed to wear shorts or even slacks to school or to work.  I came of age during a time when women could be refused a job because they were married, engaged or pregnant.  I came of age during a time when a woman could be hired within a given company for the exact job and with the exact qualifications as a man and not receive equal pay or benefits.  Women did not have equal access to jobs, education, housing or healthcare.  The way up for a woman was to attach herself to a man and hope he would have the wherewithal to provide for her and the children she might desire or feel forced to produce as a validation of her worth and value to society.  I came of age in a church that dictated women remain silent in the face of a man’s authority over the home, church and community.

Though I raised my children in a home where I was head of household, primary bread-winner, a woman with a formal education and a career, I don’t know how much awareness they have of the sheer grit and stamina it took to become that woman in my generation.  They are aware that they have a range of choices now but I don’t think they know how hard won were these choices.  What I witnessed during the 1990’s was a backlash that created a new invisibility for women.   I think perhaps my life and choices looked like something to be avoided because it was obvious it involved pain and hard work and bucking a prevalent system.  I am grateful women now have the freedom and support of society for increased equal protection under the law.  My hope is that, in spite of a re-emergence and re-embrace of stories like Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and the whole range of Princess & Barbie inundation that’s been the prominent environment my grand-daughters have experienced ¾ That the young women coming into their own here and now will not be lulled into being daddy’s little princess, hubby’s arm-ornament and/or anyone’s pampered possession.   A woman who cannot take care of herself independent of a man is enslaved.   She is weakened by this dependence and she is in danger should that man fail or refuse to be depended upon.

If you are a woman or are raising a woman-child, I urge you to think beyond your own household to the world into which your child will grow.  Are their models pop stars, celebrities and Disney characters?  Are their female models corporate executives, teachers, professors, soldiers, pilots, builders, clergy, diplomats and government leaders?  Do your daughters aspire to lead and to set policy toward justice?

Beyond teaching our daughters and granddaughters to attract the prince who will take them to “happily ever after” let’s teach them the history of the women of the world.  Let’s steer them toward the life that can be theirs through laying claim to education, independence, self-sufficiency and leadership.  Let’s urge them toward fully realizing their strengths as contributors to family, society and the larger world.  Who will our daughters and granddaughters say inspires them to make ours a better world?  Who will they say inspires them to claim their right to equality and to succeed in their potential to be second to none.

Deborah Padgett is a writer, painter, mother and grandmother.  She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.  www.padgettstudios.com