RESPONSE TO A POST CALLED DULL WOMEN something….
You need to watch "I am Woman" on Netflix, or better yet, watch the "Mad Men" series. That behavior was normal back then. Your photo looks like you're in your late 20s or early 30s? That means you never had to live in a world where a girl like me, raised in the country by a "traditional" family, had to witness a ‘dull’ life. My dad was considered a god in our town, because he was good looking, brilliant, owned 2 companies and his family was well-known. You don't know how truly lucky you are.
Mom was treated like a slave. My memories are long of my mother standing at the sink washing yet-another-batch-of-dishes, cooking yet-another-meal, mowing the grass with a hand-mower on a 2-acre front yard and 2-acre back yard. She even learned how to repair the mower since Dad was too busy to notice any of us until he finally came home. Mom would get phone calls and literal letters in the mail (I witnessed it and saw her whole being crash reading them) from strange women trying to tell her how to be a better wife to Dad, which means they most likely had intimate conversations with him whining about Mom over a drink in a bar on the way home.
Thing is, my mother was an incredibly strong woman. She didn't know it for a long time though, because she had grown up in a world where the only option for a girl was to marry and raise the 2.5 kids with a dog—if she wanted to survive this awful, cruel world. She weighed less than 100 lbs, and wasn't very tall, so it was easy for her to feel less than him. She'd leave him often. Load me and my sister up in the car, and we'd go to Grandma's. But always, always we came back. He'd either talk her back home (after his summer of love), or demand it. Mom saw no survival without him, so we always came back. She was scared. And I remember seeing my dad tell her she was stupid and didn't know enough to get a job. And his words like that to her were common among more families than you or any girl, who has grown up in a world where you can be anything you want (well, until trump) without question, can possibly imagine. Dad's behavior was considered NORMAL; a mark of a strong man. He shined. He built our house. He built the park and lakes. He could do anything. He could take a bulldozer down to parts on the floor and put it all back together again—and it ran better. And again, he was very good looking and quick-smart.
Trump likes to go on and on about "strong" men as if abuse is a mark of being strong. But Mom was the stronger person. She worked very hard trying to hold her family together. In my opinion, she married down, but few women in town at that space in time were seen as strong. They were seen as pathetic and better be damned appreciative he wants them. They were necessary evils in the man's world; ready sex, meals and kids. But in reality, a STRONG man is one who doesn't have to abuse his wife/girlfriend as though she was lucky he gave her any attention at all. We used to call that the 'John Wayne Syndrome'.
A STRONG man is one who NEEDS to know her opinion and sort it out together how to move forward. That's how most businesses work now—and trump is trying to force all of us to live in his stuck world of nonproductive, miserable humans. He may have a big bank account (that he mostly stole), but he was a dictator in the office and home. And there weren't hundreds or thousands of employees. I think it was 12ish people, and most were family. Where does that give him experience running a "company/USA" with over 330,000,000 people? It doesn't.
When Dad eventually knocked up his bookkeeper—a job Mom used to do before the menopause babies (my younger siblings) were born—she finally drew the line and divorced him. I was about 16 then. The bookkeeper was 3 years older than me. But I was relieved. After that, Mom studied real estate, and Dad was shocked she got her license. I loved that. She started fixing herself up. Getting decent clothing to show houses. She was a VERY beautiful woman. And Dad spent years trying to drag her down even though they weren't married anymore.
So I don't know... dull women? I don't understand it. We are only as dull as we CHOOSE to be. I hope my words haven't insulted you or your followers, but there's a reason we should listen to our elders. I'm not saying follow their every word. I'm saying take in their information, because it came with hard experience, process it with what you've experienced and what other women experienced.
As for me, I also had that same upbringing watching my mom take shit all her young life. Being subservient felt normal. But by then, women were taking a stand. And although I was buried in the Midwest where advancements for women were attacked, I began to dream of possibilities. That's what made our country so desired by all other humans on this planet—personal possibilities.
I eventually found out there was government money to help the poor get a degree. And although it still didn't cover all the bills, it was a lot more than my job as a plant secretary for a milling company in town. So I gave a 2-month notice, and divorced with 2 little kids (my son was 2), I started college in the summer of 1977. And because everyone in town and the country surrounding it thought NO ONE in my position could or should make it, confidence in myself was miniscule. I didn’t know how to trust my own thoughts. And they made sure I heard it, too. Control freaks all around. "How are you going to get the kids Christmas presents when it comes?" I said a Christmas present won't show them it's possible for them to build a good life. Watching me go to college will.
It took my daughter a long time grinding through college to get her social work degree. And she got it about a month ago with Magna Cum Laude recognition. Even I didn't get that. And she did it while raising a son and daughter (who had disabilities that were the result of meningitis when she was a baby). She moved back up here, started at KU, couldn’t afford it, moved to my hometown to finish at MWSU, then moved back to Texas, where I raised her, after the leadership of the social work education department treated her like she was a dumb hick—she had a heavy Texas drawl. She was literally threatened by them, and my teenage granddaughter witnessed it, (her vagus nerve damage meant she couldn't be left alone, so she often came to class or sat outside the door. Doctors said she wouldn’t make it beyond 2 yrs, 5 yrs, 10 yrs….She’s in her 30s now so far.).
What that treatment said to me was that attitudes in this town have changed very little. Men and women are still stuck in the past with warped nostalgia of a life that never existed. And all tramp had to do was poke those buttons to get elected.
So here we are. It seems to me a person who sees herself or life as dull hasn't had her skills shine enough YET. It's giving in to the 'old guard'. Everything a woman has now came from other women getting beaten, jailed, raped, spit on, denigrated and abandoned.
Forgive my grammar, etc. I'll fix it after I see the text posted.
Push forward women! Push the tyrannical idiots out of our While House NOW! Wake the f**k up!
