International Women's Day

 

 

Yesterday was International Women's Day. I think back to an event that I attended years ago at the UN in Geneva. The speakers were Germaine Greer, a successful Chinese entrepreneur, a TV presenter and journalist from the French TV Station TF1 and The High Commissioner of Refugees and Former Irish President Mary Robinson. At a later date I was able to interview Robinson, which always will be a treasured memory.

I didn't need the event to become a feminist. I had been a card-carrying feminist for decades. I marched in the marches, lobbied for pro-women legislation, written articles and letters, telephoned legislators on a state and national level.

My mother thought a feminist movement was unnecessary. 

What I found amusing in her attitude, she lived the ultimate feminist life.

She married in 1940 and was promptly fired because married women had husbands to take care of them.

So she started her own business making cloth dolls, bean bags, animals. She turned it into a cottage industry with women all over town sewing dresses and body parts. Her father silk screened faces. 

There were two couples, a white and black. Probably today the black woman would be called racist because she wore a bandana that the white doll didn't. The black male had overalls that might be considered proper on Southern plantation.

Distribution was through a warehouse that advertised in the direct mail section. When her father died, she lost interest and closed down the business despite its success.

My mother was a wedding consultant before there were wedding consultants. She volunteered to run the country club's (where we were members) rental service. She ended up helping many brides plan their complete weddings with the exception of the bridal dresses. 

When my parents divorced, my mother started another business. She did Tupperware-like house parties only with clothing. She went to Kneeland Street in Boston, than the garment district, found a variety of styles for different body types and had house parties where women could order styles they liked in their own size. She also did fashion shows for different organizations. 

She was so successful she only needed to work from January-June and September-Thanksgiving. It allowed her to be at home for my younger brother and myself during the school year and for all the major school vacations.

She became a reporter more or less by accident. Boston newspapers were on strike. The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune seeing an opportunity to open a new regional market, advertised for a reporter. My mother applied and got the job.

Coming home, she admitted she had no idea how to be journalist and planned to telephone them the next day to say she changed her mind about taking the job. Before she could, her friends started calling to say they'd read in the morning's edition she was the new regional reporter. 

My mother was a great journalist and a fantastic writer. Even after retirement she had a regular column called Stove Stories. https://stovestories.blogspot.com/   Decades later I put many of them in a blog. I do wish I had more of her writing.

She and I developed Have a Happy, an advertising vehicle targeted to newly engaged women. The content stayed the same, but we would give exclusive ads to florists, bands, caterers, etc. for a region. We would send a copy of the magazine to each engaged woman announced in that area for a year. 

My mother never did anything she didn't want to do, sometimes carried to an extreme. She never accepted that she was denied something because of her sex. She would find an alternative.

If she poo-poohed feminism, she served as a role model to me in not accepting artificial limits to my dreams. Isn't that what feminism is?