{"id":2325,"date":"2011-03-16T16:17:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T21:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=2325"},"modified":"2011-03-16T16:17:00","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T21:17:00","slug":"girl-talk-my-womens-history-month-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2011\/03\/16\/girl-talk-my-womens-history-month-project\/","title":{"rendered":"GIRL TALK: My Women’s History Month Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Women\u2019s history month has led to the predictable school project in my home: interview a woman you admire.\u00a0 I\u2019ve reflected cynically<\/a> about the value of such work in the past, but this year I\u2019m taking a different view by thinking about women\u2019s history on a smaller scale, within the course of a generation.<\/p>\n

My mother, Louise Kimmich, is a retired teacher.\u00a0 She stayed home with me, my brother, and sister until my sister entered kindergarten, and then she returned to work.\u00a0 I remember her telling me many times about her limited professional options\u2014teacher, nurse, and secretary\u2014as a way of encouraging me to have big dreams about my own career choices.<\/p>\n

But my mother modeled those ambitions, too.\u00a0 She returned to graduate school while working full time and taking care of her family, earning Master\u2019s degrees in early childhood and special education.\u00a0 She took a page from the feminist activists<\/a>\u2019 playbook and went on strike at home, effectively engaging me and my siblings in taking care of some household tasks.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s my own women\u2019s history month project, an interview with a woman I admire.\u00a0 My mom, Louise Kimmich, helped pave the way for me and all the daughters of feminism.\u00a0 Her reflections illustrate how much feminism has achieved in a generation; they also point to some shortcomings that I\u2019ll address in future columns.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, GWP readers, how do you<\/em> take stock of feminists’ achievements and its unfinished business?<\/p>\n

AK<\/strong>: Tell me about some of obstacles you faced as a woman.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: It was really the dark ages of womanhood if you were growing up in the 1950s!\u00a0 You had a certain stereotypical set of occupations you could enter: teacher, nurse, and secretary.\u00a0 You really weren\u2019t encouraged to do anything else.\u00a0 If I had it to do over again I don\u2019t know if I would enter education.\u00a0 I would probably choose something less stereotypical.<\/p>\n

AK<\/strong>: How did feminism affect you?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: During the civil rights movement, I saw that people had the opportunity to participate, and make a difference.\u00a0 It was an awakening.\u00a0 I also remember Title IX<\/a>.\u00a0 I was a wife and mother by then, but I realized what had been missing for me in terms of high school sports.<\/p>\n

AK<\/strong>: Tell me about a woman you admire.<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: I admire all the young women of today, pursuing their dreams due to the feminist movement.\u00a0 I also admire Hillary Clinton, who is my age, for rising to Secretary of State.<\/p>\n

AK<\/strong>: What is an accomplishment of which you\u2019re proud?<\/p>\n

LK<\/strong>: My proudest accomplishment is being the mother of three wonderful adult children who are educated, responsible, kind, and caring adults.<\/p>\n

Before I’m accused of self-serving pandering by including our last exchange (and really, she said that without\u00a0 prompting from me!), I would argue that my mother’s reflections on the value of motherhood highlight an area where feminism has dropped the ball.\u00a0 But more on that in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Women\u2019s history month has led to the predictable school project in my home: interview a woman you admire.\u00a0 I\u2019ve reflected cynically about the value of such work in the past, but this year I\u2019m taking a different view by thinking about women\u2019s history on a smaller scale, within the course of a generation. My mother, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1905,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21103],"tags":[8959,245,21351,10459,71,3109,4374,21926,21927],"class_list":["post-2325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-girl-talk","tag-families","tag-feminism","tag-feminist-history","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-intergenerational","tag-motherhood","tag-parenting","tag-womens-history","tag-womens-history-month"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1905"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}