Current Vibe: Devastated by the loss of RBG, this amazing woman
who impacted our lives so much. Listening
to this wonderful podcast
about her life from NYT’s _The Daily_.
RBG’s life was
a slow and steady path towards progress and institutional change, especially
with regard to gender equality. She paved the way for a more just world, where my
mom’s career in science and engineering could exist and for my own as a
financially able, working mom of two.
When RBG was a young woman, teachers were fired if they were just beginning
to show they were pregnant. If someone
tried to do that ridiculousness now, they would be sued.
I played that
NYT’s podcast in the car when picking up my daughter and her BFF from their
first day of blended pandemic back to school.
When I explained that fact about teachers, they couldn’t believe their
ears, literally their mouths were hung open in shock. I was like, yes girls, can you imagine if
your teacher was fired because she was pregnant? It’s insane! And…it’s not that far away from
us.
I’m grieving
for the loss of such a light in the world.
I’m raging at the white men in power who are doing everything they can
to scrap and scrabble for their rights over other human beings, throwing their
hypocritical remarks into the wind for millions of campaign dollars. I’m so freaking depressed about minority rule
in this country. How dare they attempt
to walk back decades of progress.
I’ll admit it—I’m
scared, terrified, that now I have to be the one to stand up. Or maybe I’m tired. But I don’t get to be tired, I have to be
strong. I better stand up, because
without Ruth on the highest court of the land writing for today and tomorrow,
then we have to do the writing and the standing.
This is going
to sound really strange and weird, but I feel like I’m grieving my own mom all
over again. Maybe because I saw her as a
beacon of strength, no matter how hurt I was as a young girl (I have a high E.Q.,
my mom has a high science I.Q., and maybe they just don’t match so well…), I
knew she always did what she could, her very best, to provide for her
family. She was a single working mom, married
to not the best of men until her third marriage.
When a teacher yelled
at me as a second grader, I can’t even remember for what—maybe something about
dropping an eraser at the chalkboard? My
mom marched in and called her out on it.
I didn’t witness that, but one of the things my mom shared with me was
this: my mom never stood up for me if any
teacher treated me unfairly, saying that’s just how it was. So I vowed that when I grew up, I would always
go in and do something if that happened to one of MY kids…
My mom’s sense
of fairness—was pretty black and white in her thinking, not many shades of gray
for her, which with my fragile and passionate heart, had trouble navigating
until I was an adult. Mom broke her own barriers
in education and workplace, an undergraduate biology major, then as a single
mom of two, earning her master’s degree in industrial hygiene, and then embarking
on a career in employee safety and later migrating to engineering—all male
dominated fields, but she carved a successful career, traveling the country and
sometimes bringing us with her when we were young, otherwise always home with
dinner on the table by 6pm, and then later traveling the world for her job. At the same time, I’m pretty sure she voted
republican and deferred in her later life to my brother about legal decisions (glossing
over any opinions I may have shared). I
was her emotional comfort, I guess, and my brother, being “the man” while at
the same time emotionally distant with her, simply was more respected for all things
real world. Perhaps internalized patriarchy,
but all the same, Mom broke barriers just by breathing and living.
When she
passed, I was broken for a month, and then I picked myself up and started
running, out of the blue. (I’ve now completed
two half marathons, and would have done a third if not for the pandemic.) Because
somewhere in the back of my foggy drink-addled head after her passing, I could
almost hear her pragmatic voice: well, get on with it already. You’ve got two kids to take care of and a job
to do.
So I guess I
kept on keeping on. Somehow RBG’s spirit
and my mom’s spirit resonate similarly with me—the former bucking tradition and
taking mini steps to change the world at large, the latter bucking tradition
and taking mini steps that changed my very personal world. And now they’re both gone, and it’s left my
heart breaking at the edges, the middle, and inside.
I vacillate
between overwhelmed with depression and at the same time, rage against the
world that would leave me (and women) behind and out of the rooms where
decisions are being made. I can’t stand
the unfairness—something my mom instilled in me and one that RBG challenged and
defeated time and again—unfairness on the basis of sex, gender, race.
I comfort at
the RBG tributes here,
here,
and here.
And I remember
that we are not alone, even if we feel like it.
My daughters can’t imagine a world where a teacher would be fired for
being pregnant. Yet that was “the norm”
when RBG was a young lady, and would also have been just passing by when my mom
embarked on her college career. I will
not forget and I will keep fighting as long as there is air in my lungs to
breathe. Even when I feel beyond tired
and want to cry. We can do this, if only
in our hearts, then our minds, then our words, then our actions:
p.s. Rage
donating to campaigns to support flipping seats Blue via Actblue.
Specifically donating to:
Amy McGrath, KY
(polls are all over the place, but would dream a dream if she could win)
Mark Kelly, AZ
(he can sit right away if he’s elected, because it’s a special election)
Sara Gideon, ME
Jaime Harrison,
SC
Pat Timmons-Goodson,
NC (Obama judge appointee that the Senate blocked, now carries a lead for US
Congressional Rep)
Apparently, I’m not alone in
doing this—record
breaking donations poured in last Friday night.
Thank goodness.
p.p.s. women's rights are human rights and human rights are women's rights
