You get up early on Sunday so you can get the kids all gussied up in their best clothes for Sunday school and church. Then you get into your own Sunday best, which starts with the hated girdle with the garters that dig into your thighs, the nylon stockings with a seam down the back that you much keep checking, because they tend to twist, then the scratchy crinolines to make your dress pouf out just so. Next, the makeup and making sure not a hair is out of place. You step into high heels that make your toes scream for mercy, don your perfect little hat that matches your shoes and the snow white gloves, and you are ready to go.
You don't hear half the sermon because the kids are acting up and bothering people. Besides that, you'd heard it all thousands of times before: you were born a sinner, you will always be a sinner, and because of you, poor Jesus had to suffer on the cross. I should repent, they say, and double my efforts to serve and please God, or he just might strike me dead and send me to hell. My poor kids, too, the little sinners.
This means always, ALWAYS serving others and NEVER thinking of oneself. Remember, to do that is a sin to be ashamed of, one that God will see and punish, for I am to be a "handmaiden for Jesus" for all my days, or I will burn in hell.
After church came Sunday dinner at my in-laws. The men all headed for the living room to relax and smoke and listen to a ball game. The women all wore crisply ironed aprons, and stayed in the kitchen where they would spend most of the afternoon cooking, serving the men and kids. Then it's back to the kitchen for another hour or two of dish washing and clean up. By then it's time to serve desert and more dishes to wash.
Finally you get home, climb out of the fancy clothes and peel off the hated girdle, just in time to feed the husband and kids supper, wash more dishes, clean another kitchen, give the kids baths, tell them a story and tuck them in. Ah. At last you get to sit down and relax. Except you forgot to iron the starched white shirt he will need for work in the morning. Shame on you. Up goes the ironing board, heat up the iron and you get it done.
The husband, meanwhile, is in his easy chair watching TV, waiting for you to have time for him. You KNOW what he has in mind for tonight and shame on you for NOT wanting the same thing. All you really wanted was a nice hot bath and a long sweet sleep.
But it is your duty as a good christian wife, to see that his needs are met, so you just go along, wondering what is WRONG with you, that you don't want sex as much as he does.
Afterwards, you lay there more sure than ever that there is something terribly wrong with you, because not only did you not enjoy this day, you actively hated most of it. Why didn't I enjoy Sunday like the other wives seemed to? Why did I dread going to bed with my husband? Why do I resent the constant demands and expectations of my children, my husband, my church, my whole world? And how long can I hold all of this anger in? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(This, my friends, is how life is for women in a culture defined and ruled by fundamentalist, sexist Christian males who were programmed to see women as lesser beings put on this earth to serve men, period. This is the kind of world we will have again, if the religious extremists are allowed to continue to infiltrate government at all levels.)
I also got to witness what happened for my husband, as his illness progressed. I saw and felt how he suffered, as gradually he became unable to fulfill his roles as dictated by the times we were in. I saw he carried as much shame as I did, in some ways, as he watched his "manhood" disappear. He told me he felt like a failure as a husband and father. He wasn't, but I didn't have a chance of convincing him of that, not up against the lifetime of sexist, fundamentalist programming of those times, that left both of us feeling like sinful failures.
It's been forty years since we lived the story I shared above. He died five years later, and it's taken me a lifetime and a lot of therapy to fully deprogram myself: it goes so deep. I still need to remain vigilant, or I can slide backward even now, at age 74.
What I know now, is just HOW powerful and life robbing it can be, when children and adults are formatted by this kind of sexism and extremist religion. I finally have found out who I REALLY am and always was, but never got to know about until I was over 50.
If I HAD known who I was back then, I would never have chosen to marry that young.
I would probably have discovered I was a lesbian before I chose to marry a man.
I would have certainly known I was NOT mother material and my kids paid for that.
And I would have chosen a career I really wanted.
But in a society run by far right religious men and powerful rich men, they get to tell you who you are allowed to become. This IS how it was, and how it would go again, if they get powerful enough.
I just can't believe my eyes when I read the evidence that a return to these days is already in motion. Legal abortions are in jeopardy: even birth control, in places where the far right has the power. We now have a Republican dominated Congress and Supreme Court, and that scares me silly. May Ginsberg be well and stay well.
Meanwhile, if you want to be able to choose the best course for this country, please seek out some progressive Elder women and ask them to tell you about their "good ol days." Believe us, please.
Because freedom isn't really "free". It's a living thing that needs to be well tended and protected. So many before us sacrificed their lives to win freedom for us all.
Now it's ours to tend and protect. Not just with words, but with actions.
Which is why I wrote this today. I'm too old to march anywhere, but I can still tell the story of how it was. Thanks for reading.