Women's History Month

During Women's History Month just as during any history or heritage month, I step up my reading of history, viewing of documentaries and watching of films about women.  Women have definitely been portrayed differently throughout history, but if you go way back, I fear there really aren't as many really positive role models.  Most of the women brought to the forefront in early history and literature are scandalous, and you certainly have to look no further than the Bible or Greek Mythology for broad stereotypes and role models you wouldn't exactly want your daughters to emulate. 

There's Eve, of course, wandering into the garden and playing with the serpent (a more obvious symbol of penis envy you will not find anywhere in Freud) before noshing on the forbidden fruit.  And then of course, to borrow a quote from 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' -'all hell done broke loose' in Eden and the so-called weaker vessel doomed hapless Adam and all of his heirs to the same fate. And seductive Delilah, before Tom Jones sang of her in the swinging 1960s, gave poor Samson the ultimate bad hair cut and brought about the strong man's downfall (although he had the last laugh by bringing the house down).  There's curious old Lot's wife who couldn't help herself but had to take a gander back at Sodom - and just as her mother had probably warned - her face stayed like that forever - in fact her entire body did, remaining where she stood in saline veritas.  Mythology was no better.  Helen of Troy, don't get me started, and poor misunderstood Cleopatra.  I suppose there was  kind, gentle Ruth, who even garnered her own book in the Bible (one Book named after a woman out of a total of 39 in the Old Testament), but what of the two Marys (no, not the ones from reality TV) of the new testament?  Guess they weren't big writers like Paul.

Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of both good and poor male role models in the Bible and in mythology, but women tended to get elevated for, oh say keeping their legs crossed for years on end while their spouses or suitors sailed the high seas on one adventure after another (Penelope), and in real life if they had any weird peccadilloes (Ann Boleyn for example, a little too attracted to her own brother at the same time she was an expendable spouse to old Henry VIII - or Marie Antoinette and her cake fetish)) they tended to lose their heads or (the cross-dressing, pugilistic Joan of Arc) get a little too hot under the collar. 

So, during Women's History month I am not advocating that you watch The Other Boleyn Girl, or the grotesque Cinemascope extravaganza Cleopatra.  Quite the contrary.  There are so many movies about very strong women who were just ordinary people.  Some of them would have led very different lives had they been born even 20 or 30 years later than they were, but all of them are role models in their own ways.  Great books I've read about strong women include "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio", written by the late SF Chronicle cartoonist Terry Ryan about her mother holding a large family together amidst the chaos of marriage to an alcoholic underachiever (it was also made into a movie starring Julianne Moore if you're not a reader).  A great black and white gem of a movie that is based on a real social worker is "A Child is Waiting" starring Judy Garland - about a teacher in one of the old state schools who dared to connect with and love the children who were placed there.  Garland, a tragic figure in her own right based on when she was born and the entertainment system she was fed into, wears her fragility on the outside in that movie.  And if you want to see Elizabeth Taylor stand tall, watch Giant.  Lots of overacting in that movie, but her character comes through just as Edna Ferber intended when she wrote the original book.  Finally, sometimes it is the secondary character, the one not often highlighted who teaches girls and other women great things about dignity, perseverance and strength.  Here I am back at the movies - Ghosts of Mississippi with Whoopi Goldberg as Myrlie Evers - moving forward for decades after Medgar's murder and finally seeing justice; and Walk the Line, with Reese Witherspoon as June Carter, a woman who believed in love against all odds and understood the difference between a passion that would pull her in and the real, enduring love that you work to make last a lifetime. 

For Women's History month I remind myself to also think about my mother and my grandmothers - all women of strength.  Nobody has written books about them or made movies about them, but they are equally remarkable and unforgettable.