Empowered Women?

In my mind when I think of empowering women, the poster of Rosie the Riveter comes to my mind. She looked like a capable young woman who could do what she needed to do.

A second memory when I think of empowered women is my grandmother, Margaret. In her younger years she was quite pretty, but that wasn't all, she was capable and determined as well.

They say dynamite comes in small packages, and that was the case with my grandmother. She stood (in her stocking feet as they say) at five foot. She and my grandfather who was six foot made an odd pair. When my grandmother talked about their courtship she would say, 'they called me Vernon's little wee woman'.

There were seven children in grandma's family. She had one younger brother, and five older children. When her mother died she was either ten or eleven. History is a bit fuzzy here. Her father was away at the time her mother passed, and most of the children were gone by the time he returned. He died shortly thereafter.

If there had been any money left from her parents' estate someone misused it, and eventually Grandma became a ward of the state, sent to a home for wayward girls. She was taught homemaking skills, cooking, sewing, and housekeeping. When she graduated she was a dietitian. Her first job was helping a local family in my grandpa's neighborhood of Audubon, Iowa. It was a hard job back in that day, but she soon graduated again becoming my grandfather's wife.

My grandparents raised a large garden, and that meant knowing how to 'lay food by', which they most of the time worked together to do. Back in their day they did their own butchering, at least hogs and small animals. I recall Grandma telling of the time she butchered one hundred chickens in a day. By herself.

I only knew two of her other siblings. Her younger brother had ended up in an orphanage in Canada, but had managed to run away and get back home. Her oldest sister had married a pharmacist and they drove out of the city to harass—I mean to visit—often on Sundays. Grandmother was a wonderful cook, but housekeeping seemed to be a bit of a nemesis. My Great-Aunt Effie always found something to pick at Grandmother about, and often pretended to be a little bit better than our side of the family.

My Grandfather was who he was. He never suffered with identity problem syndrome. He didn't put on airs, nor did he give them either. So, for all her prissy ways we didn't see her and her husband as better than us either. However, it was a source of irritation for my Grandma.

There is more to this ramble, but I'm going to sign off for now, with just a few more words. People today would like to believe that—until women got the right to vote, or until women got equal pay, or until women get equal treatment in the work place... people today believe that empowered women are something we've not seen yet. But that's not true. I will probably repeat this saying in the future because it's true, and it's great. As my cousin slapped her package of bacon on the counter in front of the cashier and told her, "If my ancestors could walk across this continent with bacon grease dripping from their lips, I'm not going to worry about it either."

My ancestors were both men and women walking across this continent. Like it or not, they were all empowered, not just the men, but the women who walked beside them. People today need to get a life and get over themselves.