Fall 1998
"Women's Libber"
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My indoctrination into the world of men versus women came at a young age. It was the early sixties, and the catch phrase "women's rights" was still whispered with either repugnance or quiet celebration, depending on which camp you belonged to. As an innocent five year old I had no idea that a war had begun, and that I would find myself a wounded victim as often as a triumphant hero.
In kindergarten we were encouraged to participate in traditional role playing, but I didn't want to be the mommy when we played house. I wanted to be the daddy who drove off in his car every morning and never had to wash dishes or do laundry or change a baby's diaper. A girl wanting to play the daddy? It was an outrageous request that met only opposition. But I was ardent---no poopy diapers for me. I made such a fuss the other kids finally complained to the teacher that I wasn't playing fair. Naturally, the teacher said, "Linda, the girls are the mommies. Let the boys be the daddies."
"But why can't I be the daddy?" I asked with my hands on my hips. "I can pretend just as good as the boys!" She never gave me a satisfactory answer. Eventually I was excluded from either role, and had to be content pretending to be the dog who always jumped on the sofa with muddy feet.
One warm, Indian summer day in late fall we exploded from the classroom, ready to shed the winter coats our mothers had insisted we put on anyway----twenty coiled kindergartners hurrying to whatever piece of playground equipment frightened and fascinated us at the moment. I walked slowly to the tower---the tallest, scariest, brightest red piece of equipment on the playground. During lunch recess, when the big kids who stayed all day had free reign of the playground, this tower was commandeered by the baddest, meanest fifth graders in Tinkham Elementary. Or so my sister said---she was in first grade and often ate lunch in the big cafeteria, so she knew things. And here I was, five, looking at that big red monster and thinking, "I'm gonna wet my panties if I climb up there." Still, I knew I had to. For twenty minutes I climbed. Up two levels, back down. Up three levels, back down. My knees were shaking, my stomach hurt.
Some of the boys had wandered over and were watching my slow and painful progress through my fear. One of them said, "Aw, come on. Let's go play. She ain't gonna do it. She's a girl, and girls can't do nothing." My eyes narrowed. What exactly did he mean, girls can't do nothing? What did it have to do with being a girl? I hadn't seen any of them brave the red monster. I'd show them who was a girl.
I wiped my sweaty hands on my dress and began to climb. Level one, two, three. My god, I couldn't breathe, but I kept going. Four. Five. Stop. I looked down between my sneakered feet, the wrong thing to do, since now I could clearly envision how long it would take my body to fall such an impossible distance and how I would splatter like a pumpkin dropped from a two story window should I slip. Now the boys were shouting and pointing, but what they yelled I could not tell. The atmosphere at that height must be distorting their words somehow. I lifted one foot, tucked into the foothold. The other foot followed. Suddenly my eyes were on level with the top, the pinnacle, the parapet. All I had to do was climb one more step and swing my leg over the rail.
I pinched my eyes shut. Tears squeezed from between my lashes as I anticipated my imminent triumph. Step, ready set go. Swing. On top, oh god how high am I?! I scurried to the center of the platform, fear snagging my insides like glitter in glue. My teacher, Ms. Aquino, was rushing across the playground, being led by the boy who said girls can't do nothing.
"Linda D'Amico, what in God's great name are you doing!" I gave a little wave, my hand shaking, my smile a rictus imitation of my usual gap toothed grin. "Exactly what are you doing, young lady?" It was then that I realized she was angry, not stunned and pleased at my display of daring. Her dark eyes bore into mine, and I knew real terror. "I can see your underpants from across the playground. Have you no shame? Get down right now and start acting like the young lady you are supposed to be." Shaking with fear and humiliation, I climbed down. "Girls don't climb on things and show their panties, do you understand me?" I nodded my head and learned a valuable lesson that afternoon. It was better for girls to keep their hands clean and their panties covered than to conquer a six-story monster.
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In first grade Billy Duncan pulled a chair out from under me while I was standing on it to erase the blackboard. It had happened before. Billy Duncan used to tell everyone I was his girlfriend, yet the only way he felt comfortable communicating with me was to push me, pour glue on me, or throw his cookie at me from across the room during snack. But this time was different. I was wearing a dress and when I fell my underpants showed. I was mortified. Hurriedly, I jumped to my feet and smoothed down my jumper, looking around to see if anyone had noticed. A few boys were snickering behind their hands across the room. Billy, seeing their mirth, joined in. That was it! If Billy Duncan thought this was the way to get girlfriends he was sorely mistaken. My mind went red hot with anger. Gathering all of my 42 angry pounds, I pushed him with every bit of strength I could muster---right into the chalkboard ledge. I could tell right away I had really hurt him---his face screwed up and the black hole of his mouth was open for at least three seconds before the wail escaped his lungs. The teacher grabbed my arm hard and dragged me to the principal's office. "Girls don't fight," she said.
"But he started it!" My stance of hands on hips, chin jutting forward in defiance, earned me a week of 'Office Duty' during morning recess. I didn't mind---Billy left me alone after that. And I refused to wear dresses to school from that day on.
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My third grade teacher, Mrs. Herald, was a women's libber. Things were different in her class. The girls were not forced to group with the boys for class projects, our seats were not assigned boy-girl-boy-girl, and best of all, we were encouraged to compete openly with the boys in our class. Even by the third grade it had become obvious to us girls that the teachers didn't like it when the boys were made to "look dumb." In Mrs. Herald's class, if a girl could spell better than any boy in the class, she was rewarded for her skill---not teamed with a slower boy who would miss the first word in every spelling bee, eliminating the pair from the competition. We would hold "lesson bees," girls against boys, answering questions on whatever subject we had been studying in history, math, or English. The girls would always win. The girls were, on average, better students than the boys---and we never let them forget it. It was my first lesson in the power of liberation.
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When I was in the fifth grade my family moved to a small town. I was enrolled in the Catholic school there, very small classes commanded by a group of old Polish nuns. The superiority of the boys was not just hinted at in our school, it was ordained as a fact of nature. The Polish sisters were stern taskmasters---they followed the "old ways" and were quick to slap "the sassy mouth of you girlies" about as often as they knelt to their prayers. The boys they worshipped. An act of disobedience committed by a boy might elicit a sharp reprimand by the nuns---the same offense by a girl got her paddled with a hand broom. If a girl dared to display an assertive nature she was quickly thrashed into submission. Young women had their places, and pity the poor girl who forgot it.
Sister DeSales and I butted heads often that first year I attended St. Anthony's. She called me "wild child"---I called her many worse things under my breath. One day we were told to work on our SRA's, reading card assignments with questions to answer. The SRA box was at the back of the classroom and was the equivalent of a workplace water cooler---we students exchanged smiles and jokes as we rifled through the big box. Jeff St. Pierre, one of the most outrageous flirts in the fifth grade, would always be sure to linger long enough at the box so that he and I could talk. It was innocent. We smiled, laughed about the stupid stories we were being forced to read, we smiled. From out of nowhere Sister DeSales descended upon me like an avenging angel. Her ruler smacked me ruthlessly on the back of my naked legs, below my skirt and above my knee socks. I turned---intense shock allowing a moment of purely instinctive movement---and I grabbed the ruler right out of her hand. Her face became a study of holy fury.
"You, girlie! Get right back to your desk, you hear?" Her hands were raised in front of her, as if she expected me to retaliate with her own weapon.
"Sister, I was getting a card . . ." The tears leaking from my eyes were from an equal mixture of physical pain and emotional humiliation. Jeff turned and escaped to his desk. The class was silent, waiting for something to happen. It did. As anger replaced humiliation, I lifted the wood ruler and broke it over my knee. Handing the pieces to the awestruck nun, I walked calmly back to my desk. Sister DeSales never raised a hand to me again.
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�There were eight girls and eleven boys in my seventh grade class at St. Anthony's. The old Polish sisters had been replaced by a progressive order of nuns from the Chicago area. The new Sisters, who taught four of the eight grades housed along one small hallway, were progressive because they often wore only their habits and not the full nun regalia of flowing black robes and crucifix belts. Seeing our nuns in street clothes was startling at first, and even though these sisters seemed more "human" we still believed that they, like their predecessors, had no hair beneath their habits.
It wasn't unusual for the boys to be taken out of class for extra duties, such as sweeping the gym or helping the milk truck driver carry in the crates of milk to be sold at lunchtime, while we girls had to stay behind and continue our lessons. The boys would stick out their tongues and wave as they sauntered from the room. The injustice of the situation made me livid, but the other girls just accepted the inevitable. The final straw came on the day our young parish priest asked for the boys to be released from class to rake the falling leaves from the school and rectory grounds. It was a splendid autumn afternoon, the sun shining in a blue cloudless sky, and the breeze wafting into the classroom from the half-open windows smelled of the passing of time---the sweet perfume of leaves drying in the sun, of the alfalfa being mown in the large field behind the school, of rotting apples in the shade of the ancient fruit tree in front of the convent where our Sisters lived their peculiar lives. The girl's exclusion from these small privileges smelled to me of a conspiracy. The boys, even now strolling from the room with a look of pure delight on their favored faces, were not going to get away with it this time. It was time for me to act.
"Father," I raised my hand high, lifting my butt from the seat in an effort to be noticed. "Father John! I know how to use a rake, sir. I know how to hold a bag open and put leaves in it. When will it be the girl's turn to do out-of-class work?" He turned and looked me in the eyes, noticing me I think for the first time in the two years he had been our assistant priest. The eyes I once thought were so dreamy now held a dismissive contempt as he snarled in my direction, "The girls should know their places," and turned from the room without looking back.
My heart hurt with the limitless pain of being the inferior species. We girls spent the rest of the afternoon pretending to do our lessons, but instead I think we were all wishing for a little dangling thing between our legs so that we, too, could enjoy the autumn day.
Weeks later, when I regained some of my dashed confidence, I approached my teacher about the unfairness of the situation. She told me to sit down and stop making a big deal out of nothing. Not acceptable, I thought to myself. Instead, during lunch that day I went to the principal, Sister Joan, and told her how unfair I thought it was to let the boys out of class while the girls had to continue their lessons. She was hesitant at first about shaking up the status quo. Bringing a few girls with me at the end of the lunch hour, I showed her that we had no problem handling the milk crates, carrying them easily to the Melody Farms truck parked at the front door of the school. She nodded but said nothing. The next day during gym she materialized out of nowhere, handing each girl a broom, shouting at the boys to line up at the door to return to class. My triumph was complete---the girls cheered, the boys moaned.
It was our turn to stick out our tongues and wave goodbye. The girls suddenly saw me as a leader, the boys saw me as their enemy. I was never so liked, and so hated, at the same time. Taunted for being a "woman's libber," I had to physically defend myself at every recess. When I complained to my teacher she said, "If you want the same privileges the boys have, then you should expect to be treated like a boy." Ultimately I got fed up with getting pushed down, hit with dirt balls, and called a "libber." One day, after a particularly nasty dirtball attack, I grabbed the nearest offender and threw him to the ground. I jumped on top of him, intent on pummeling him into submission. "Do you want to see what kinda girl I am? Huh? I can kick your butt, you baby wimp." The taunts, the teasing, and the unfairness of my predicament exploded in a bevy of punches aimed at this boy who was every boy, every man. I was finally pulled off my bloodied victim by one of the Sisters and sent to the principal's office.
There, a grinning Sister Joan said, "Mrs. Slaughter says you split Walter's lip. Now the boys won't be so quick to taunt you anymore." She put ice on my bloody knuckles and kept me in her office for the rest of the afternoon. The other kids thought I was in real trouble. The truth of it was I spent an enjoyable afternoon hearing how Sister Joan, as a young girl, had to fight the biggest bully in the Chicago housing project she grew up in so she would be allowed to play baseball with the neighborhood boys.
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Things changed pretty quickly after that. The boys now sought me out for their dodgeball teams because they knew I could take a hit and come up throwing. They also invited me behind the church hall, to teach them the finer arts of kissing with an open mouth. I was voted May Queen, the eighth grade equivalent of prom queen, and stood mesmerized on the rostrum as Father John placed the small floral wreath on my head and kissed my cheek with his beautiful soft lips. His eyes showed no memory of my previous incarnation, the girl who had forgotten my place. Perhaps his dark and dreamy eyes were not really seeing me, but the Virgin Mary, whose life we gathered to celebrate on that warm May day. Regardless, I moved forward from that day knowing there were more battles to fight, more people who would want to see me fail, more people who would want me to cover my panties and act the young lady.
And I still didn't understand, why?
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