AMERICA'S ERICAS
My origins were in the land of the Teutons. I was proud of my origins.
The unemancipated status of the girls in the Hast family was accentuated by this background. I, more that my brothers, inherited the arrogance of my father. This, along with a childish recognition that a caste system prevailed in our household, caused me to rebel inwardly. It was humiliating to be a "lesser" person than my brothers. I had three of them.
Even in the shadowy realm before my conscious memory there existed a resentment that became a part of my ego. Stored away in my mind was a hazy picture of lying in that hand-me-down crib and sensing the biased situation that was to confront me almost as soon as I would take my first step. It was always there: "Why did I have to be born a girl!"
As if it were yesterday I can summon out of the past the image of a little girl dressed in boys clothes waiting anxiously to hear what she already knew would be her mother's response to a query, "Oh, I let her wear her brother's clothes because she wishes she was a boy."
Very likely after those moments the incidents would leave my mother's memory, never to return; but the picture was carved into my child-mind to remain forever. And although the years eventually found me grown and enjoying the status of a woman no longer beset with doubts as to the substandard sex that had been my assignment, it would seem as if the movement for sexual equality, smoldering since antiquity, might have brushed against that old handhewn crib.
Despite these rebellious and resentful early years I seemed never to have developed any hang-ups. Born at the century's turn, I never joined any movement for equality. I never carried a banner nor climbed on a stump. I was satisfied to find my way alone, and at that time at least, to go as far as I could comfortably go in the province of the male.
Perhaps the answer was simpler. In spite of that mixed-up childhood obsession I enjoyed being a woman. I was able to think as a man supposedly thinks, and to include in my thinking the emotion and intuition of a woman. A letter from my soldier son read, "....I think of you. not as a sweet, feminine mother as the term "mother" is supposed to bring to mind, but as a mother who is fair and honest, and one who wheels her guns to face life."<o:p></o:p>
I re-read that part of my son's letter, drinking in the eloquence of its lines. And then aloud, with no one to hear I read again those words and added, "If gravestones are still in vogue I shall want mine to read, "She wheeled her guns to face life." But such a chiseled tribute I could never claim for myself alone. Out there is a multitudinous army of women who far more than myself merited that accolade.
Of course I could only vaguely sense what had been in my consciousness while lying in that crib. Was I perhaps contemplating the mysterious aliveness that I had suddenly been thrust into, the activity all about me, and the society that I would become a part of? The society of a middle class farm family at the century's turn, even though in contact to a small degree with the outside - no automobiles, no radios, and certainly no television - would have reflected, of course, the atmosphere and attitude of that world.
And, at that period of time in this country, and surely more so in others, the female sex was neither considered nor treated as the equal of her male counterpart. And the one hundred percent Teutonic background that was tucked into the make-up of all German immigrants who by sailing ships or whatever, made their way to America and became parents of Ameri cans.
So the sixth child of the Hast family lay in her crib during those early years and childishly contemplated the household that she had been born into. Why was the father superior and the brothers superior simply because they were boys! Well, that was the way it was! And this girl child, through no choice of its own, was destined to emerge from the confines of that crib and its reign at infanthood - at which even the girl babies in that household happily had their sceptered fling - and I would have no choice but to adjust to my pre-ordained status!
And even if I, the newborn, had had the phenomenal ability to comprehend and choose the alternative, so what! Here I already was, in the flesh, Elizabeth Bertha Hast, Bessie for short, already existing and never to be anyone nor anybody other than myself; for only once in God's great scheme could this particular accumulation of genes have been jostled into this unique oneness which was the sixth child of Adam W. and Berth E. Hast!
While I was impatiently living my early years the status of the female was inching forward, and I reached maturity late enough to enjoy marked benefits which female crusaders of the previous decade had achieved, and to enter a world where my own capabilities were recognized equally with my male contemporaries of this early twentieth century. Of course this progress was not taking place in all areas of activity where the female sex was striving for attention. However, women were now being educated outside the teaching and nursing professions and various doors were opening to them throughout America.
Thus the drive for equal rights was moving along, and though even today the Sandra 0'Connors are not yet too much in evidence and the paychecks still unequal, yet advances have been made - advances to such an extent that one might wonder if the final outcome of all this furor might somehow be a reversal of benefits for the female sex. In other words, might the "lesser sex" in sowing the wind, reap the whi rlwind!
The male, according to the specialists in sex psychology, is reported to be having difficulty rebounding from his put-downs by the steadily progressive aggressive female. They tell us he in on the defensive and is being affected psychologically. He can't cut it as well in the marketplace nor can he cut it at home. So the male ego becomes strained with a competitor under his own roof and he no longer is the confident male but a bruised belligerent whose importance has been diminished.
So America's Ericas are on the march! Out of sheer restlessness, economic security or boredom, they head for the marketplace. Make way America, for the Ericas, the indominatible females who arrive in the workplace. All ages, shapes and sizes. Those of the previous generation who first raised their families, those whose babies today are in nurseries or in the care of surrogates, and those who are postponing motherhood and adding to the abortion furor.
You can envision the Ericas in their slick tailored outfits with their briefcases, high heels beating tattoos on the sidewalks, the Ericas in fresh officers' garb walking the beats or jumping in and out of U.S. Mail trucks with the proper insignia on their jackets.
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