Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History….
We have all heard it before, “You’ve come a long way baby!” Usually I smile at the catchy jingle that Virginia Slims made a household name in my childhood. I am immediately transported to those funny commercials that show women struggling to do everyday things. The final scene is always a glamorous woman, smoking while leaning back and the slogan in the background. 2018 seemed like a years away from this until I walked into PETS’s Spouse training. I was immediately transported to 1952 and told that my role as the spouse of the President would be to type his agenda, serve as hostess, do in other words all I could to make him look good. As a modern woman, I must admit I was floored, bewildered about what I had gotten into and to be honest, angry. Why angry? I had been Rotoract President, the last in a long line of women at CLU at the time but I was basically being told to just look pretty. Well, Jeff got an earful that afternoon. I was ready to have nothing to do with his Rotary year, and then I heard Silvia Whitlock speak. With her demeanor and great ability to tell her story, I was reminded of one big fact: I stand on the shoulders of giants. Sylvia turned me around by reminding me that change happens not by screaming and shouting my displeasure, but by standing by my moral compass. I was mesmerized by her story and loved her humor so much that I immediately encouraged Jeff make her PETS speech part of his programs.
Last month, I picked up a book that was a collection of short autobiographies of women who misbehaved. It had the normal bad girls of history like Amelia Earhart, Marie Curie, Helen Keller, Nellie Bly and Bonnie Parker. However, it also boasted some not so known women like, Helen Gurley Brown, Anais Nin, Mary Blair, to name a few. What these women had in common was simple, they broke the barrier in one way or another. Sylvia Whitlock, would fit right in. Because they lived life to the fullest, we can do some things that we now consider ordinary. Their struggle may not seem like a big deal now, much like what is the big deal for women to be Rotarians. I could assure you, it was scandalous and Silvia Whitlock in the humblest of ways, took up the torch and lead us all to today’s normalcy.
So, this month as we honor the bad girls in history that we all know, let’s not forget that some important triumphs, may not seem big but created a whole new normal for us all. Let’s honor women like Silvia Whitlock not by claiming to be feminist but by living and embodying the 4-way test. I know I am not a Rotarian, but I know I have little girls watching and learning from me. We, as women today, set the tone for what us normal for our little girls when they become women. This is why I wonder, have we really come a long way baby?
