Overdue Thanks

As a young girl, I wasn't surrounded with positive female role models. On the contrary - if I were to post my early adolescent list of 'women I'd like to be' it wouuld be a short and scary trio, all in the "actress/model" mould.

Even though it appears that one's natural choice for a role model tends to be one's mother, mine could not be relied upon. Although she had done what was at the time a bit shocking, i.e. get divorced, she was still mired in the traditions of the '50's and vibrating like a tuning fork to the radio waves of the patriarchy.

In her worldview then, as it remained, a woman was nothing without a man and would remain unfulfilled without children - no amount of career or personal satisfaction could be achieved without the trappings of a traditional family. Her view certainly didn't extend to the radical idea of fostering within her three daughters reliance on intellect and reason, a solid self-esteem or unlimited ambition.

In college, I was horrified by academic women - they were neither sharp nor focused; their overall flakiness and fuzziness merely underscored my feeling that they were not examples of women I wanted to be. They could very well have been brilliant, but their profound lack of zippy delivery and general passiveness failed to gain my attention.

As a parenthetical aside, for my younger readers - there was no such thing back in these wild and woolly days as a female superhero, cartoonish or otherwise, upon whom to set one's fantasy sights and no female ninjas to stimulate our imaginations.

There weren't any women heroes of any type other than legendary feminists like Betty Freidan and Germaine Greer, middle aged already when I discovered them, or historical proto-feminists overlaid with 100 year old mold (Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Stady Canton, etc.).

In many ways I did not find them compelling women - they were not au courant in the least, and frankly their lives didn't set me on fire.

(I know the prevailing view is that I should show these women a great deal of respect for what they accomplished in order for me to live the life I do now. I do feel respect, but I don't believe that my admission that they didn't set off any sparks with me is tantamount to heresy.)

Flash forward then to a very naive and vulnerable me; at 22, quite alone and brand new in New York, the proverbial hayseed just dropped off the turnip truck.

I was lucky, damn lucky to work for a fabulous woman who embodied a role model into whom I could sink my teeth. At a time when I was questioning everything (even the job I was doing) I knew I could always go to her with questions, observations, theories, and ideas. Why did the corporate world in which we moved behave as it did? Why were ideas dripping with common sense and logic ignored if they came from a woman? What were the sorts of subterfuge and manipulation required to get things done and why were the rules always so slanted against us?

What I got in return was beyond measure; her attention, concern, interest in my well-being, and always her honest thoughts about the work we were engaging in, the people (men) we invariably had to please, and the intracies of operating in the larger world beyond.

These statements were always delivered with an infectious laugh and often an admonition that while our existence was a blip on the radar, a firm belief in being true to oneself and maintaining personal integrity was of paramount importance.

She encouraged my reading and broadened my literary tastes; she supported my writing and taught me how to craft winning business letters.

I never wanted to be a mother - my personality is ill-suited for its rigors. Through her quiet example, she taught me that I needn't cave into biological determinism, and that I could stand tall and proud and state without apology that I didn't want to bear children.

As the years have passed she and I have stayed in touch while making distinctly separately journeys.

Even now there are many occasions when I know beyond doubt I've opened my mouth and her words fly out; the theories and ideas she was so willing to offer me I remember and honor by freely passing them along to the next generation, unsure if the seeds fall on fallow ground and take root.

Thanks for those seeds, dear Gardener. I hope I've been able to plant at least a few.