Hear Me Roar

When I was a young girl my mom would make me and my sister help her make our brothers’ beds after she had washed the sheets. It was easier for us to climb up on the top bunk and the boys were nowhere to be found. I thought it was a travesty that the girls in the house were expected to make the beds of three capable boys. I was mad the entire time and would ask when the boys ever helped make our beds (never). Mom just wanted the job done and told me to stop my complaining and get on with it.

In 1972 when I Am Woman by Helen Reddy was released, I was the ripe old age of 15 and instantly knew that I had heard my call to arms. I grew up on that song and so did my outrage at what women had to contend with on a daily basis. When I got my first adult job in Chicago I remember arguing with my dad and brother at the dinner table about the fact that the office secretary was like a mother to every man in the office – reminding them of appointments, to bring their umbrella, that the report was due, that she’d order flowers for their wife. “How come they can’t remember that themselves,” I asked and the two of them explained that was the secretary’s job. “But she has all kinds of other work to do,” I said and they scoffed at that nonsense. More important than mothering grown men? C’mon, Kath.

Over the years I never lost my shock at the blatant sexism. When I was the PTA treasurer at my kids’ school and we had an auction fundraiser, a dad I barely knew was standing at the checkout and told me he would take care of counting the money. “That’s okay,” I said, “that’s my job.” He looked at me and said, “Don’t worry about it, honey, I’m in finance.” Don’t worry about it, honey? “So am I,” I said, “and since I’m responsible for every cent collected I’ll be counting the money.” He was livid. I was more so and not about to let him handle thousands of dollars.

The state of the country in the last ten years has only added gasoline to my raging fire. I think (maybe falsely) that I have kept a pretty good lid on it but these days my little lid has been popping off on the regular. On a Sunday afternoon while Mike was working upstairs, the doorbell rang and I met someone canvassing for one of our city’s mayoral candidates. I politely declined his handouts and said that I would be voting for the opponent. When he asked me why I told him that as a 30+ year resident I have followed local politics closely and that I was disturbed by many things in the last few years. Specifically, that the candidate has aligned herself with a very divisive group, that many of the things they were saying were flat out false, that they used fear tactics to garner support, that every candidate that ran in the last election who aligned themselves with this group lost handedly, and the amendment they proposed to change how city government works lost even more handedly. And you know what happened next? He looked at me and said “You’re wrong.” Not “well if you change your mind,” not “just be sure you vote.” I was wrong so I dug my heels in, said “okay, buddy, game on,” and after thirty minutes of back and forth on an assortment of topics I told him I was done.

Before he left he made a notation on his clipboard. Maybe it was that the woman that lived there was crazy and I’ll own that. I am crazy and ready to go scorched earth on the misogony, the dismissal of our strength and intellect, the frat boys and their rape parties, the grown up frat boys who become president and cabinet secretaries, and all the don’t-you-worry-honey men who try to insert themselves into our lane. Times that with numbers too big to ignore and the best defense might be to get out of our way because this whole mess is about to be flipped on its head.