Little Women

I watched the movie "Little Women" a few weeks ago in the fabulous Rex Theatre in Slave Lake. It is a great movie that illustrates the struggles women have gone through for generations in their attempts for equality.

My paternal grandmother was matron of a hospital in 1914. By my count she was in her mid-20s at the time (she lied about her date of birth a few times so she could keep working past mandatory retirement age). My other grandmother was admitted to nursing school but didn’t go because her family left Ontario to pioneer in the Peace Country and she went with them.  She was fascinated by medicine and the veterinary sciences. My great aunts all became teachers but they had many other skills and talents in art, photography, farming, and the biological sciences-who knows what they would have done if they had been born in a different era? I’m sure my maternal grandmother would have been a vet and Granny Hartford ? Maybe she would have ended up managing a corporation the same way she managed her lively household. They were in no way "little woman." They were fierce in their own ways. They were smart, opinionated and enterprising. And they were role models for the next generation of females in their families.

Granny Hartford,front and centre

My mom graduated from high school at age 16. She got a commerce degree and then was told there were no jobs for women in that field. She became a teacher, guidance counsellor, got a Masters degree, then became a wife, mother, and community organizer. She used her talents in many ways but I heard her say more than once that she wondered what her life would have been like if she had been able to pursue a career in marketing. She marketed the non-profits she belonged to like a pro.

Mom on her graduation from University

My mom and dad both wanted me to pursue a career in science. I didn’t think I had the aptitude so I too followed a traditional women’s career as a teacher. I don’t know why I thought I wouldn’t be good in the sciences. I wonder if my education had something to do with it. Were there subtle or less-than-subtle hints that I wasn’t smart enough?  My report cards-stowed away for me by my packrat mom- indicate my teachers thought I was great in the humanities, but lacked the critical thinking needed for the sciences.

My own two girls have not pursued anything in the way of traditional women’s work. One has a degree in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Biotechnology. The other is a geophysicist who worked in oil and gas for several years in a male dominated environment and is currently studying climate modelling. They were encouraged in these pursuits by their dad and me and their grandparents and their small-town public school teachers. Have they experienced discrimination because they are girls? Absolutely. As a summer student working for a survey company, my eldest often was left in the office while the male student went out in the field. The other? There are not a lot of women in oil and gas. She knows what discrimination is. However women in the industry have their own network to support each other. They’ve both learned when and how to assert themselves and when to stay quiet. When to fight it out and when to pack it in. How to develop allies. Mostly, how to work and work and work. It’s not a level playing field but they are smart, enterprising, and hardworking. And I hope they have more confidence in themselves than I did.

The world has changed a lot since Granny Hartford was matron of the Weyburn Hospital. It’s changed since my mom was denied a chance to use her creativity and drive in the field of her choice. It’s changed since the days of my schooling where I was told I “failed to grasp the concept of variables”.  Because I do fully grasp that concept. There are a million variables that influence not just the result of science experiments, but also where we live, how we live, and the opportunities that lie in front of us.  

There are still parts of the world where women are denied their full potential.  I would like to think that Canada is not one of those places, but here in Alberta there is still inequality. We see recommendations that certain services to women are considered of “limited value” despite the fact that tubal ligations and breast reductions are life changing for many women. Yet vasectomies are not mentioned. It's hard not to disagree with my friend Stacy when she says the government wants to keep women big breasted and pregnant. As well, Alberta has the largest pay gap in Canada between men and women- about 40% according to the Alberta government. Women are more likely to work in minimum wage jobs and are far more likely to live in poverty. Misogyny is alive and well as anyone following the nasty comments directed at former Premier Notley and former environment minister Shannon Phillips demonstrate. Or the ongoing attacks on the traditionally female-dominated professions of nursing and teaching.

Louisa May Alcott and her sisters might have been considered "little women" but due to women like my grandmothers, today's girls can be much more than that. Thanks to the passion and drive of today’s young women, I know improvements will continue. It is sad that we need a day to reflect on what it is to be a woman, but we do. We still have a lot of work ahead of us. 

Happy Women’s Day, ladies! 

Cropped

Sitting Bull with his mother, Her Holy Door, his daughter Many Horses
and his grandson in 1885. William Cody Archives.

Look for pictures of “Sitting Bull” and you’ll find dozens of images of the iconic Lakota holy man, known for uniting the contentious aboriginal tribes of the northern United States into a doomed resistance against the U.S. government in the late 1800s. Renowned as a martyr who lost his life in the battle against U.S. colonialism, Sitting Bull was a holy man and a leader, a singer, dancer and artist- and a man renowned for his wisdom. Sitting Bull is a hero not only to the first peoples of the United States, but also to those who seek inspiration from those who stand up for what they believe in against impossible odds. His story has been featured in books and movies. His place in history is secure.

But look at the original photo from which the well-known image of Sitting Bull was cropped. An image of a family man, seated with his mother, daughter and grandson. Not much is known about Her Holy Door and Many Horses. What role did his mother play in raising her son to fight for his people? Why is there no wife in the picture? What happened to the beautiful Many Horses and her son? What is their place in history? Aside from one or two speculative references in Sitting Bull's story, a few genealogical records and a handful of photos, their story is unknown. Like hundreds of aboriginal women today, they are invisible and voiceless.

What do we choose to know about the past? How much is chosen for us? Who decides what matters in the sweeping narrative of history? Historians and archivists and politicians and the croppers of photographs have their own story to tell. They have their own narratives in which characters such as the brave and proud Sitting Bull figure prominently while women like his fierce, noble, nurturing mother disappear into nothingness.

My parents both passed away recently and I find myself the bearer of their history. As I sift

through their photos and letters and documents, I find myself wondering why certain things were saved while others were discarded. I have my dad’s love letters to my mom, but not her letters to him. I have all the letters my grandfather wrote to my grandmother- from the Front during World War One, from far flung northern outposts where he relieved for bank managers on holiday-yet I have not a single letter written by my grandmother. The narratives are told by the men in my family's past, secured by their female counterparts, their archivists. These primary source documents tell the story of their lives, but is only part of the story. Like the photo of Sitting Bull, part of their story stands out while the rest has been cropped away, leaving me with only one perspective on their shared story, an unclear version of the past. 

As a Social Studies teacher, I wonder what part of history we share with our students and how much we leave out. Adam Smith is known for the concept of the invisible hand, yet do we teach our students he was an absent minded fellow who lived with his mother, a woman whose own invisible hand fed him and cared for him when he sometimes forgot to eat? We know Karl Marx was one of the most influential thinkers in modern history, but what do we know of his wife Jenny and their housekeeper Helen? Do we teach our children that Jenny was an educated and political woman in her own right who gave up an aristocratic lifestyle to pursue the rights of the underclass, living in poverty and witnessing the death of most of her children? Or that Helen, after most probably fathering Marx's child, continued to live with the Marx family for her entire life and now lies buried in their family plot? Or that two of his three daughters committed suicide? How does that knowledge colour our understanding of Marx's statement "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"? We teach our students that Jean Jacques Rousseau was one of the most influential of the Enlightenment philosophers, but what do they learn of Francoise-Louise de Warens, his mistress and benefactor? Would his ideas have seen the light of day without her financial support and commitment? And did Rousseau's own dependence on an older woman at an early age lead him to his belief that "man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains"?

I think about my own daughters. Who will tell their story? Will they be the archivist or the narrator? Will they have the right to choose the role they will play?