Monday, June 15, 2015

Role With the Flow: The Women in My Life, by Betsy


Aspiring to be one’s own person is noble indeed.  No one would doubt that.  But in my experience growing up female in America in the mid twentieth century this ideal was indeed elusive and impalpable to many girls.

As a youngster my mother was my major role model.  Other female role models were my grandmothers, an aunt, and to a lesser extent some teachers. I consider these role models to be the most important in shaping my adult persona because it was from these women that I learned who I was meant to be--or should I say who I was supposed to be.  Put another way, I learned how I was supposed to behave and, more importantly, how to perceive myself going into adulthood. The women were also the mirror for me which reflected who I was and who I was to become.

These role models I mention were good people.  They strove to take good care of their families; that is, to be good wives and mothers. They were honest and loving.  The roles, however, were clearly defined.  A woman’s role was to NOT be in charge.  In fact it appeared that a woman in that day in this culture was not even in charge of her own life.

As a youngster growing up the message I got was loud and clear: your happiness and your future welfare requires, first, that you get a husband and the degree of that happiness and welfare depends on who the man is that you marry.   A woman’s identity, her sense of who she is, is intrinsic in what is reflected back to her from the people close to her--especially her husband. I have recently come to realize that many females of my generation have struggled with their true identity; they have struggled to “be their own person.”

At the same time, my growing up experience followed a period of time known as the Progressive Era, the early decades of the 20th century, which saw the beginnings of huge changes in the roles of women.  My grandmothers and my mother saw some very obvious changes such as shorter skirts and short hair, and some movement toward political equality. Women were no longer expected to be frail and demure and confined to their parlors or their kitchens.  Spurred on by the necessities brought about by two world wars, women entered the work force and were allowed to enter professions heretofore open only to men.  By mid-century women, especially of the middle class and the Western World had completely redefined their roles in almost every sphere of culture.

These were huge changes.  Yet they were mostly all outward superficial changes.  I still received the message from my female role models that if I did not marry, I would end up unhappy, unfulfilled, and lonely. In other words, I, by myself, could not create my own persona. I had to depend on others to do that. Most females I knew received the same message. But for some of us that image of just who we were and who we were to become did not fit. Many of us had to try it on before learning that it did not fit.  I suppose this is one reason that so many lesbian woman of my generation were married and had families and were middle aged before recognizing their own sexual orientation and their true identity. This and the awareness that came along with the gay rights movement helped us along.

Even today’s women struggle for power. Many men are threatened by women who have more power than they. Not all men, but some, feel emasculated by women who have more control and become more powerful than they at home or in the work place. Is this a natural happening or is it learned?  The evidence, to me, shows that it is learned since not all men have this insecurity.  (I sincerely doubt that any man in this room falls into that insecurity category.) Again in many cases I suppose it depends on the role models they followed.  I contend that the woman role models in my life were married to men who did not have this insecurity.  They were not controlling and overbearing at least insofar as my memory and my experience allows me to make the judgement.

The women in my life, my mother and my grandmothers, were products of their culture and reflected that.  At the same time they were progressive and welcomed the changes and disappearance of the restrictions that kept them from expressing themselves earlier. Perhaps their progressive attitudes contributed to my ability to come out later in life.

As it turns out neither of my parents ever learned who I really was. They both died before I came out. To me this is a sad fact.  However, only mothers and grandmothers who outlive their daughters ever learn who these daughters FINALLY become.

We are constantly changing hopefully growing and progressing.  If we make it into old age of course our role models are not there to see how we finally turn out.  But it is for certain that the spirit of the women in my life has been traveling with me every step of the way and will continue to the end.

© 24 Nov 2014 

About the Author 

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change).  She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years.  Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning.  Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren.  Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

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