Skating Uphill-November Issue (2018)

PINK MAGAZINE

November 2018

Skating Uphill

By

Judith Lawrenson

 

All Right, Girls-November is gratitude time-RIGHT??

 

The late, and might I say great, Joan Rivers once was rumored to have said, “Gratitude sucks, give me plastic surgery every time!” That is a bit extreme, I grant you, but think about it for a while. That humble, grateful, thank you so much I could not have done it with out you may have worn just a bit thin lately. I do NOT mean that one should not have the generosity of heart to acknowledge when one has been helped. God Forbid! What I really mean is that we, and by we I mean women in general, might want to look at where we are in our struggle for equality and maybe just take a deep breath and not be afraid to look victory in the eye.

Women are still putting on their funny hats and marching. I get that. We are also going strong on the #Metoo movement and that is something new and long overdue. Yes, in some cases it has perhaps gone to an extreme, but on the whole, I do think some kind of justice has been and is being served. We are winning battles right and left-no puns intended.

Let’s look at some interesting statistics for just a minute. Did you know that more women than men graduate from high school? Did you know, also, that more women than men graduate from college? I bet you did not know that. Did you know that in many medical fields women outnumber men? Did you know that there are more women veterinarians than men? Okay, maybe you did know all of that, but did you know that California recently passed a law (I know, I know, whacky California, but this is true!) that every company of a certain size that was headquartered in the state had to have at least one woman on its Board of Directors? Guess how many companies that actually affected as it turned out? ONE! The California legislature was a bit red-faced to say the least!

Another statistic that I found hard to believe at first was that more women are now heads of households than men. This counts single parent households, but it also takes into account women who live alone and surprisingly it takes into account women who are the major wage earners in their own two parent families. Quite a surprise, huh? Perhaps we are not as bad off as we thought. I wonder how many women billionaires there are? I did recently read that one of the Jenner girls, Kendell or Kylie, I can’t remember which one now, was on her way to being the youngest billionaire in history. Pretty good for a young woman, I think. More power to her!

We have come such a long way from the days that gave women who went to college the opportunity to either be a nurse, a teacher, or, as my dad used to say, looking for that MRS. Degree. My daughter is a doctor and my daughter-in-law is a computer science engineer and a university professor. I had a very successful career as a Reading Resource specialist but went back to school later in life to be more that a regular teacher. I earned what we laughingly call a post-menopausal master’s degree when I was in my forties.

I guess right about here I need to get back to not being thankful or grateful and talking about support. As we gather together with our dear ones and as we share mutual love and thoughtfulness around whatever our Thanksgiving traditions may involve, I hope that it is in each or our hearts to understand many things. First, we are honestly and at some real level, in the same boat. I believe that everyone has a basic humanity and as a Christian I stand by that. Second, while I have made jokes about being grateful, please do not think that I am not. We, none of us, really “makes it on our own” nor should we. Thanksgiving is sort of a politically incorrect holiday now. You do not see pilgrims and Indians and things like that used as décor any more. We seem to have combined Fall and Halloween into a package and then we sit down and eat dinner. Well, maybe the Pilgrims did not do the Indians any favors, but hopefully we will not forget that back in the day they were all sitting down together thankful to have food and to be together and alive to share it. Maybe not so bad, Huh?

Happy Thanksgiving-Love, Judith

 

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