This is an interview I answered for this blog a month ago, but then I never got around to posting it & then I thought, I'll add photos! because pictures always make everything more interesting.  Except I'm just learning to scan so...Only One Picture.

This is me somewhere around 1970-ish.  As you can see, I have always been a stylish dresser.  I think I gave up the army shirt around 1976.  The tank top is probably still in a box in the garage.  (Just trying to open the interview with a visual & it was this or my daughter's Joan of Arc Barbie.)

Interview:

Do you mind telling  me basic things about yourself?

Are you kidding?  I unfortunately love to talk about myself.  I'm 58 & female & live in a small town.  I grew up in small towns, river towns & moved to the Bay Area when I was 28.  First in Berkeley (on Telegraph Ave.) & then onto Foster City, CA -- the ultimate suburb, practically a Fisher-Price Village.  In fact, if you take an elevator up to the top of the VISA building & look down it's as if you are looking down on all of the Fisher-Price toys dotted with cars & parks & little people in primary colors.  

I have one husband (my second), four daughters (two of them step), two younger sisters & two younger brothers.  

How much are you involved with kids right now?  Do you enjoy being with them?

REALLY involved.  I spend lots of time with my grandsons, as they live about six miles away.  I love being with them, and also with my granddaughters who live a few hours away so we don't get to see them as often.  I love being a grandmother, I love being a part of their lives.

What jobs have you had?  (Include caregiving jobs -- parenting, babysitting, elder care.)

Cannery jobs -- pushing fruit into cans before things changed and women were finally allowed access to the higher-paying jobs, at which point I began "forking cans" (yeah, sounds obscene) which was physical, paid better & got me into the best shape of my entire life.  Also fast food work (Jack-In-The-Box where the girls all HAD to wear dresses AND nylons to work behind the freaking counter & clean the milkshake machine), farm work, secretarial work.  College wasn't an option so I took all secretarial courses my senior year of high school & worked as a secretary before & after high school.  I worked for the school, at an ammo plant, a hospital storage room, a fire department, a construction company.  I typed out food stamps for the Welfare Department.  I wrote bullshit profiles for a dating service.  I transcribed mental health evaluations & insurance claims.

Caregiving was always a big part of my life.  I watched my siblings first, and then moved on to nieces & nephews.  Then to my own kids.  And neighbors' kids.  I even volunteered at a Day Care Center (& was miserable & bored).  When I worked daycare at home I got paid $2.25 an hour for two kids.  Until my mom entered a nursing home last year I also took care of her & before we moved nearby I would sometimes drive 500 miles in a day to make sure she got to her doctor appointments, then come home & transcribe tapes, then get up with the kids & the husband in the morning to get everyone off to school/work.

I was raised to be a caregiver.  My Mom didn't like women or "women's work," loved her job as an executive secretary, and sort of made me the "mom" so that I read my siblings stories & stayed with them when they were sick or in the hospital, even if it meant missing school (not that I minded that at all).  I did the grocery shopping & cooked dinner each night & had it waiting for my mom when she'd get home late from work.  I even got up early to make her breakfast before she left for work.  

I sometimes used to fantasize that I was a maid.  Except I sucked at cleaning, ironing, etc.  Mom once had me iron her boyfriend's shirts for money & I effectively burned a hole in his favorite shirt so lost that job quickly.  

At what stage was the women's movement when you were a child and teen?  Were members of your family involved?  Was it talked about at home and in school?

I graduated from high school in 1969.  At that point we all still had to wear dresses, even in the chilly valley fog, and most of us wore girdles & nylons & sucked in our stomachs & shaved our legs & ironed our hair.  I slept on big soup can rollers so that my hair would be straight with a little flip on the end.  

There were lots of rules.  Be a virgin until marriage.  (Yeah, right.)  Don't wear tampons as they might ruin your virginity, & God forbid you touch yourself in ANY way.  We weren't allowed to work "male" jobs & we were encouraged by magazines like Teen to be coy & let boys win & let boys do all the talking about cars & for God's sake, don't sleep with them!

T.V. shows had giggly "girls" in bikinis.  Dean Martin's Golddiggers wore skimpy clothes, draped themselves over The Star, brought him drinks, lit his cigarettes.  I remember being appalled by this & ranting on about the sexism. 

Nobody talked about menstruation, menopause, cancer or sex.  "Good hygiene" was important.  When I hit 19 I became a vegetarian, stopped shaving my legs & armpits, stopped wearing makeup or even combing my hair.  Stopped wearing shoes in the summer.  At that point in my life I had never bought "new" clothes & only wore jeans & clothes that were given to me.  I was also "green" before that term became popular & used castile soap & no detergent & nothing that wasn't "natural."

If you have a spouse or partner, are they concerned with equality issues?

I wouldn't say my husband is concerned, but having four daughters has certainly made him more open to considering sexism as detrimental.  If a daughter was passed over for a promotion because of being female, he would certainly be outraged.  

During his younger years he was unaware of most sexism (until it was pointed out to him by the women in his life.)  His mom stayed home, couldn't drive, but also was not one to silently take a lot of shit from anyone.  His whole family -- female & male -- are what I will call here "feisty."  We'll leave it at that.

He did used to get pissed when women would compare themselves to "slaves."  This is kind of weird as he's a white man, I'm not sure what he was so indignant about but... I did agree with him on that point, & felt The Movement suffered when relatively affluent women compared themselves to oppressed African-Americans.  Certainly this might be pertinent regarding women in other situations, other countries, but overall I think women in lovely homes with enough-money to live very comfortably denigrated the movement by comparing themselves to slaves.  Granted, they may have felt as if they were in a prison, but it was a low security white collar crime prison & shitty as it may have been, it was still better than Attica.  

Plus, people who were opposed to feminism liked to drag up the slave analogy & ridicule it, the same as they did "bra-burning."  Politicians used it in the same way they used the bullshit stereotype of the "Welfare Cadillac."

I will say that my husband did go through a "jerk" phase where I was left at home with four kids while he pursued his "freedom" because he was a "man" and needed to do guy shit & hang out with other guys on his motorcycle drinking beer & finding himself.  I like to think I made his life as miserable during that period as he made mine.  I still cannot STAND the song "Good-Hearted Woman." 

When did you first notice sexism,whether directed at you or anyone else?

My mother worked long hours & got paid crap, even though the job fell apart when she wasn't around.  She got fired once when one of her bosses tried to rape her & she threatened to tell his wife.  My dad was a serial philanderer & when my mom finally divorced him we became the poor kids with the "divorcee" mom.  Ooooh!  Some people wouldn't let their kids hang out with us.  The biggest problem, of course, was having no money because my dad didn't pay his child support.  I have known way too many men who didn't "want to give that bitch money," which is a bullshit excuse for not wanting to give up any of your money & not giving a damn whether your kids go hungry & wear ratty clothes & cardboard in their shoes.  (Okay...I'm still a little bitter about this...)

My first personal experience with sexism was when I was 16 & worked at an ammo plant.  One day the office copy machine broke down so I had to go out into the warehouse to use their machine.  I walked in & two guys sitting on the edge of their desks leered at me while I used the machine.  I tried to ignore them because, at the time, I was terrified of men, but they stopped me on the way out. 

"We have a bet going," one of them said, staring at my breasts (I was wearing a yellow turtleneck shell, I still remember).  "I say you're a 36, but he says you're a 38.  Which one of us wins?"

I was completely freaked-out & humiliated, but I'd also been taught that if men ask you something you need to respond so I pointed at the one guy & said, "You win," and, head down, hurried out, mortified.  Of course, years later I realized I should've told them to fuck off, but at 16 I barely knew what that meant.  I remember feeling sick.  (Now that I think about it, that wasn't only sexism, it was pedophilia.)

Do you ever find yourself being a sexist?  Has anyone accused you of sexism?

Nope.  There was a period where I was accused of "man-hating," but in retrospect the men that I hated deserved it.  I like men!  Truthfully, if it wasn't for one particular man, I wouldn't be down in this room in this nice house writing on this computer, about to get into a car that actually runs & has air conditioning.  

 (Okay -- this is getting WAY too long...I need to shut it off here & go hang out with my Mom at the Care Home!  I will try to get to Part II later.  Maybe I'll scan another picture!)

Suzie blogs at Suzie's Patchouli