One of my biggest uh-huh moments came from watching the movie Annie Get Your Gun with my then 7 year-old daughter. She was incredulous at the end when Annie Oakley altered her rifle to deliberately lose a sharpshooting match against her intended. The implication was that her man would not marry her if she continued to be the perfect shot she had always been.
My daughter could not understand why a woman would subvert her ability to attract a man. I looked to my husband to try to explain this. He admitted that when the film was made — 1950 — and through much of the 20th century, it was accepted mantra that men were naturally more capable than women. He further explained that, actually, it was the fragile male ego that had to be catered to in order for women, like Annie, to be considered for a love match (not to mention many jobs). No matter how we tried to explain it, she simply could not believe it.
This was like a lightning strike to my husband and me. We realized how bought in we were as kids, as we would never have questioned this dramatic arc when we watched this movie in the 1960s or 70’s. We had similar reactions when we convinced our kids to watch the Jetsons and Flintstones – two cartoons we loved as kids. Seeing these shows in the 21st century was shocking for their debasement of women.
Our daughter’s reaction conveyed how significant the cultural shift has been. She’s been raised by us and our culture to strive to achieve in ways no different than her brother.
Enter the Notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg
As we all mourn the passing of the notorious RBG, this story came to mind. I had grown up accepting such gendered strictures, although much less so than my mother and her generation, who were prohibited from even having a credit card in their own name.
While this Annie Get Your Gun moment brought home the ridiculousness that I blindly accepted as a small girl, we now know that RBG, Gloria Steinem and many others — prior to and since — worked tirelessly to overcome institutionalized misogyny that my daughter found unbelievable. RBG deserves the immense adulation so many have for her. She methodically broke down immense legal walls just to enable women to be covered by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution’s equal protection clause.
Give the Youth their Due
While there are legitimate criticisms of our generation’s helicopter parenting, one benefit is that we prioritize hanging out with and listening to our kids’ thoughts and opinions. This is much more prevalent than the more delineated way I was raised when there was little overlap between parents and kids lives, other than dinner time and the occasional trip.
Right now, it is understandable why so many parents are stressed from having to raise, homeschool and serve as playmates to their school age kids. Hopefully, there is some residual energy to appreciate our kids’ nuggets of wisdom that will appear from time to time. This story is an example of how my wise kid taught her parents a lesson in cultural BS.
Between the Trump Administration, the pandemic, more visible racist incidents, and so many extreme weather events, our kids are having to mature at a more rapid rate than usual. They deserve to be more influential than ever given they will have to live with the diminished environment, economy and governmental safeguards shaped by our collective ineptitude in recent years.
Luckily, there are folks like RBG that have shown us that dark times can lead to lighter ones. I know I’m not alone in yearning for a more positive, less anxiety producing time. We’ll know in November whether this direction will come sooner rather than later.
What is helping me with perspective right now:
A (6 minute) excerpt from a RBG interview on how she handles difficult times.
Article that says it all — “Your Surge Capacity is Depleted: it is why you feel awful”
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