DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971

Transcribe
Translate

Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971

1971-07-02 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 12

     There never was any talk of divorce between my parents -- I think they both like and/or need the relationship they have. My father is the decision-maker in every important way, though he always discusses things with my mother because she supports him completely. They both finished college (their families have been middle class forever) but my mom was a home ec major and my dad was in engineering, so there's no role competition between them. 
      I've been trying to figure out the values I got from my family -- where I learned to measure my self-worth. My school work was always praised and I learned to be a very high achiever. The rewards I got were never money or privileges but the knowledge that my parents were proud of me, they approved of me, and therefore I was a good person. What knowledge I learned in school was important not because I was smart and therefore good, but because my parents (especially my father) were gratified and they judged me good. 
     The pattern established led me to look for my self-concept in the opinion of others -- first my father, and later other people I respected. So the value I learned overwhelmingly was to earn justification through personal relationships...not, of course, self-directed relationships because I always granted the other person the power to set my goals and evaluate my progress.
     It's amazing how much like my mother I am in that way. The reason such a discovery is surprising is that I identified so strongly with my father during most of my life. I was a whiz in math and science, never did artistic stuff which my mom was really talented in. Although both parents praised me I knew it was daddy who set the criteria. 
     The reason my growing up failed to go smoothly is that I'm a girl. I never located the contradiction between my father's encouragements and notion of what I should be with what he valued and needed in my mother. He wanted me to be "independent," 

recollections from

yet obviously his happiness depended on a woman who deferred to him consistently. How could I do both?
     I tried to though. When I was a sophomore in high school I started going with this boy who had a lot of the surface confidence of my father. Although he wasn't as smart as I was in school, he knew a lot more about emotional and psychological competition that I did. We developed a relationship that, by the time we were seniors, we were convinced was the ultimate in maturity and love. He dominated me with loving care and every emotional recrimination in the book. I was blissful. 
     My parents hated him. I couldn't understand it. But it wasn't until just recently that I realized my confusion came because I was being criticized for being in a relationship that exactly echoed my parents'. By extension daddy's criticism implied that he needed a submissive woman, but he didn't value one. I felt the implied disrespect for my mother, but again couldn't name it. To protect myself I put my mother down in my own mind (though I didn't get out of my destructive affair until I was a sophomore in college).
     I'm not sure about this, but maybe my mother hated my relationship with that boy so much because she knew how much I'd lose, and she sensed that I could learn not to have those self-limiting needs that she accepted in herself.
     It's really a fantastic feeling to realize you don't have to despize or pity your mother. I don't know if it's a pattern, but a lot of women I know have said that when they were a few years into their 20's they suddenly began to understand their mothers and the many ways they are like them, and not have to reject that. 
     The hardest lesson to unlearn has been the one about deriving my self-concept from the judgements of people I respect and want to love me. Approval and love have been directly connected in my mind for so long, and approval was always on the other person's terms. The smallest disapproval meant loss of love through rejection, and I feared that because if I wasn't loved then I didn't deserve to be loved: I was a bad person. One of the reasons I got divorced was that I knew I could never learn to deny my husband the power to judge me, even though the judgement I inferred was often in my own head. The pattern was so well established that I knew I couldn't break out of it in the context of that relationship. 

[hand drawing of woman's head]

[hand drawing of woman sitting]

a new perspective

   When I was a kid, my Mom used to say that as soon as she was able (that is, when we were through high school) she would take the dog, and head for Reno.  A couple of years ago, what she was saying was that if she had to do it over again (get married), she didn’t think she would.
   I think she was fearful for us girls, perhaps afraid that her situation would be repeated. One way for at least part of that to change was to be financially independent. I never can recall hearing much about a career, just the absolute necessity of a college degree, (‘ they can take away everything’, my mother who never had anything would say, ‘but your education’).
   I think all the values I got when I was growing up were defined by my Dad. It wasn’t complicated, what men did was justifiable and logical; what women did was neither. So on the one hand, while I would take something like a physics course to please my Dad, if I did well in it, it was put down.
   It must have been one of my smart-ass periods, I can remember my Mom saying something like who’d think such a smart girl could have such dumb parents. It took me a while, I’m afraid to say, to see what she meant. How she kept her image of herself intact, I don’t know.
   It’s true that being part of that family wasn’t easy for anybody, but I do think that the women in it suffered the most. I never could laugh at myself because I never saw that kind of joking done with any kindness. And that was a lot of the humor that existed: putting people into a bind, and then laughing at them.
   In spite of my 4 years of math, and doing well in it, I never thought I had any aptitude for it, what I thought was that I was just good at memorizing formulas. It wasn’t until a year or so ago that I realized that I could understand some things about math and statistics. Women weren’t supposed to really understand, or be good at it.

   It’s funny, the other thing I thought I wasn’t good at was getting along with people. With good reason -- all I remembered how to do was bicker. Even now I tend to criticize instead of discuss. My thing was that I’d have a few close friends, you had to really know me to like me. What took longer was realizing I could respect women, one, then two or three. Even that was ass-backwards. It’s one thing to respect women by male standards, but to understand how women’s place is intertwined with women’s image, and see that in women you know, is easier said than done.

Page 12   Volume 1 Number 17  Ain’t I

Saving...

There never was any talk of divorce between my parents -- I think they both like and/or need the relationship they have. My father is the decision-maker in every important way, though he always discusses things with my mother because she supports him completely. They both finished college (their families have been middle class forever) but my mom was a home ec major and my dad was in engineering, so there's no role competition between them. I've been trying to figure out the values I got from my family -- where I learned to measure my self-worth. My school work was always praised and I learned to be a very high achiever. The rewards I got were never money or privileges but the knowledge that my parents were proud of me, they approved of me, and therefore I was a good person. What knowledge I learned in school was important not because I was smart and therefore good, but because my parents (especially my father) were gratified and they judged me good. The pattern established led me to look for my self-concept in the opinion of others -- first my father, and later other people I respected. So the value I learned overwhelmingly was to earn justification through personal relationships...not, of course, self-directed relationships because I always granted the other person the power to set my goals and evaluate my progress. It's amazing how much like my mother I am in that way. The reason such a discovery is surprising is that I identified so strongly with my father during most of my life. I was a whiz in math and science, never did artistic stuff which my mom was really talented in. Although both parents praised me I knew it was daddy who set the criteria. The reason my growing up failed to go smoothly is that I'm a girl. I never located the contradiction between my father's encouragements and notion of what I should be with what he valued and needed in my mother. He wanted me to be "independent," recollections from yet obviously his happiness depended on a woman who deferred to him consistently. How could I do both? I tried to though. When I was a sophomore in high school I started going with this boy who had a lot of the surface confidence of my father. Although he wasn't as smart as I was in school, he knew a lot more about emotional and psychological competition that I did. We developed a relationship that, by the time we were seniors, we were convinced was the ultimate in maturity and love. He dominated me with loving care and every emotional recrimination in the book. I was blissful. My parents hated him. I couldn't understand it. But it wasn't until just recently that I realized my confusion came because I was being criticized for being in a relationship that exactly echoed my parents'. By extension daddy's criticism implied that he needed a submissive woman, but he didn't value one. I felt the implied disrespect for my mother, but again couldn't name it. To protect myself I put my mother down in my own mind (though I didn't get out of my destructive affair until I was a sophomore in college). I'm not sure about this, but maybe my mother hated my relationship with that boy so much because she knew how much I'd lose, and she sensed that I could learn not to have those self-limiting needs that she accepted in herself. It's really a fantastic feeling to realize you don't have to despize or pity your mother. I don't know if it's a pattern, but a lot of women I know have said that when they were a few years into their 20's they suddenly began to understand their mothers and the many ways they are like them, and not have to reject that. The hardest lesson to unlearn has been the one about deriving my self-concept from the judgements of people I respect and want to love me. Approval and love have been directly connected in my mind for so long, and approval was always on the other person's terms. The smallest disapproval meant loss of love through rejection, and I feared that because if I wasn't loved then I didn't deserve to be loved: I was a bad person. One of the reasons I got divorced was that I knew I could never learn to deny my husband the power to judge me, even though the judgement I inferred was often in my own head. The pattern was so well established that I knew I couldn't break out of it in the context of that relationship. [hand drawing of woman's head] [hand drawing of woman sitting] a new perspective When I was a kid, my Mom used to say that as soon as she was able (that is, when we were through high school) she would take the dog, and head for Reno. A couple of years ago, what she was saying was that if she had to do it over again (get married), she didn’t think she would. I think she was fearful for us girls, perhaps afraid that her situation would be repeated. One way for at least part of that to change was to be financially independent. I never can recall hearing much about a career, just the absolute necessity of a college degree, (‘ they can take away everything’, my mother who never had anything would say, ‘but your education’). I think all the values I got when I was growing up were defined by my Dad. It wasn’t complicated, what men did was justifiable and logical; what women did was neither. So on the one hand, while I would take something like a physics course to please my Dad, if I did well in it, it was put down. It must have been one of my smart-ass periods, I can remember my Mom saying something like who’d think such a smart girl could have such dumb parents. It took me a while, I’m afraid to say, to see what she meant. How she kept her image of herself intact, I don’t know. It’s true that being part of that family wasn’t easy for anybody, but I do think that the women in it suffered the most. I never could laugh at myself because I never saw that kind of joking done with any kindness. And that was a lot of the humor that existed: putting people into a bind, and then laughing at them. In spite of my 4 years of math, and doing well in it, I never thought I had any aptitude for it, what I thought was that I was just good at memorizing formulas. It wasn’t until a year or so ago that I realized that I could understand some things about math and statistics. Women weren’t supposed to really understand, or be good at it. It’s funny, the other thing I thought I wasn’t good at was getting along with people. With good reason -- all I remembered how to do was bicker. Even now I tend to criticize instead of discuss. My thing was that I’d have a few close friends, you had to really know me to like me. What took longer was realizing I could respect women, one, then two or three. Even that was ass-backwards. It’s one thing to respect women by male standards, but to understand how women’s place is intertwined with women’s image, and see that in women you know, is easier said than done. Page 12 Volume 1 Number 17 Ain’t I