The first and only time I went to Grand Rapids, Mich., I was accosted in the zoo while walking with my then two year-old daughter by a grown woman dressed as a princess. Assuming that I lived close by, the princess lady asked me if I would like to sign my daughter up for etiquette lessons.
That was six years ago and etiquette lessons were about as foreign to my M.O. as training to be a mechanic. And yet, the fact that some little girls in this city were clearly expected to grow up to be polite, pretty and perhaps not much else did make me wonder at the time whether there were other scripts available for females in Grand Rapids.
I’m pleased to say that there are. In an election year in which woman power may well decide the presidential election, an inter-generational group of 12 women has launched its own chapter of Stop the War On Women Grand Rapids. They range in age from 30 to 75. They are nurses, lawyers, artists, and social workers. Some are married. Some are not. Some are parents. Some are not. Some are gay. Some are straight.
They aren’t protesting etiquette training. Instead, as my longtime friend Kathleen Ley put it to me, they were initially motivated by the “stunning avalanche of disdain and distrust for women in Michigan and in the United States and the legislation at the state and federal levels intruding on women’s health care choices.”
Read the rest of this post on The Washington Post’s She The People blog…
Image: Got Women? by billb1961 via Flickr under a Creative Commons license
October 31, 2012, 7:01 am
As soon as you accept the idea that you are in control of your thoughts you will be able to create your own happiness….
November 12, 2012, 2:04 am
If you are going through hell, keep going.- Winston Churchill My favorite too, I guess those of us that have been through hell and made it out know how much perseverance is required.