What Woman Set a New Standard for You?
We're offered narrow models and stereotypes. Who showed you more was possible?
Next week, I’ll share highlights from your thoughts on where you keep count of women’s representation. Feel free to add to the conversation (and mention any other kinds of counting you do).
When I got married, I married into a yiayia-in-law. My husband’s grandmother is a pistol, and she received a distinctive tribute at her 90th birthday party a few years ago. I joined my in-laws and friends of the family for a boisterous meal with many toasts. Multiple women at the table credited Dorothy with “expanding my idea of what a woman could be.”
For some, it was early trips to the opera or the ballet—the invitation into a heightened world of beauty. For others, it was her unshy stubbornness. Different women saw different possibilities reflected by her life, but many of them saw something in her they hadn’t seen in anyone else.
One goal I have in running Other Feminisms is to spotlight more voices and experiences than my own. It’s why I structure the newsletter to have a Monday prompt from me, and then a compilation of your responses the next Thursday.
I’d love to go beyond that, running more guest posts or interviews with some of you, especially with people who don’t think of themselves as writers. There was a trenchant and true remark during my event with Plough on “The Case for One More Child” about assembling a group of writers to talk about work-life-parenting balance. Writing isn’t my day job, but the point about the narrowness of representation stands.
I have one guest author on her way, but I’d love to spotlight more women nominated by you.
For this week, I’d love to hear about a woman who expanded your own sense of what it could mean to live as a woman. And, if she’s still living/someone you keep in touch with, please let me know by replying to this email if you’d like to possibly interview her yourself or have me do it as part of a new feature of this substack.
I’ll give one example of my own. When I went to college, I had the advantage of already being very comfortable standing up for myself. Even now, when I do speaking engagements, I need to remind myself to make sure I’m not jumping in too quickly for every question, to make sure quieter voices can still be heard.
April, the head of the debate organization I joined, wasn’t loud and forceful like me at all. She was soft-spoken, she wore what felt like Tolkien-toned clothes (beret excepted), and (although we haven’t gone back to back) I believe she’s shorter than I am. But she had an unmistakable sense of authority and presence.
As a freshman, I was a little scared of her, and thrilled when she paid me a compliment. Her stillness was a different kind of strength than my forcefulness.
We’ve remained friends, and we’ve remained fairly different in this way—our friendship isn’t an averaging out. But I feel more prepared to raise my daughter, and offer her a fuller sense of what kind of woman she can grow up to be, because I know April.
Thanks for this question, Leah. I come from a family that gave a number of daughters to the convent, mostly the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, Long Island.
My Grandmother was asked many times how she could allow her loveliest daughter, my Aunt Gene, to join the convent. She would always reply: "You wouldn't give a wilted rose to the Lord, would you?" (That remark took a bit of processing for my Mom, and two other Aunts, I imagine.)
Aunt Gene was the first woman I knew of who earned a Ph.D. And it was in Chinese history! I recall the party at the St. Angela Hall convent when she received the degree. I also learned from my Dad's Aunt, our "Aunt Bob" (baptized Rosamund & nicknamed Bob as a girl) who was the Mother Superior there at that time, that women can lead organizations.
It was not much of a leap after that realization to appreciate the leadership shown by my Mom's cousin, a Sister of Charity, who served as a college President.
Then, seeing religious women leading hospitals and hospital groups, gave me a whole new standard of what women can do.
I grew up in a mix of social circles: the church circles showed me many examples of women who got married, had kids, were happy and fulfilled, and said this was the best way for a woman to live. The other circles (my mother's sphere, and later on most of my college professors) showed me many examples of women who had careers, might add a husband and kids on to that, were happy and fulfilled, and said this was the best way for a woman to live. But growing up we had a picture book --- Miss Rumphius. As a little girl she's told she must do one thing to make the world more beautiful. How? she wonders. She works for a while (as a librarian), travels the world for a while (and hurts her back, ending up with chronic pain), and eventually settles in a little house by the sea. She's middle-aged by now and still hasn't discovered what her one thing is, but one spring she gets the idea to plant lupines in all the local ditches ("Now they called her 'That Crazy Old Lady'."), and you can guess what happens. She's not a career woman really, her not getting married is never even mentioned, and yet there's absolutely zero indication that the absence of either of these things makes her unhappy or unfulfilled. By the end of the book her house is full of kids --- neighbour kids who've come to hear the stories the Lupine Lady has to tell.