The new President’s timing could not have been better.  Valentine’s Day is supposed to be about loving others and taking the time to let them know it.  What better way to show love for over half of the human population than by declaring that gender is truly worth equal pay for equal work?  That is love in action!

Culture of the 1970’s

Obama passed an equal pay law with more teeth than the one passed in the 1970’s. Back then the few women who did try to enforce that law faced discrimination of getting blackballed in their industry for future jobs or higher management positions. Educated women did not fare well for standing up for themselves. Heaven forbid you dared to test the sexual discrimination or whistle blower laws. The retribution came fast and furious.

Female Culture Wars

At the time even other women foolishly scorned them, calling them selfish and greedy for desiring equal pay for equal work for the same long hours. Those were some severe female culture wars of the stay at home mothers vs. the single women and single mothers who had to work to live. They had to support their children as the husband refused to give any child support and there were few laws to help.

Stay at home mothers and wives benefited from their husband’s status and income because of whatever the husband chose to share, not what they earned on their own. What that segment of American female society did not fully realize is how dependent they were upon their husbands’ generosity, only one step away from poverty.

It took a black man to make white women, and women in general, equal status in their own country - finally. Maybe it’s karma that now a bi-racial President has returned the favor forty years later. A generation ago white women worked alongside African-Americans for them to gain their status, often at great personal sacrifice here in the South. Southern women who challenged the status quo were shunned by all of their society, sometimes beaten, occasionally killed by the Ku Klux Klan.

For generations white women have waited and waited, some patiently and some not so patiently, reacting with caustic anger and resentment, for their own white men to set them free to no avail. This week a new President decided to make that happen. Guess what, civil rights and equality really is supposed to apply to everyone, even old white women.

Recently, my grandmother, Isabel, passed away at the ripe old age of almost 99 years old, complete with a sound mind and spitfire attitude. She was nobody’s fool. Half French-American and half immigrant Castilian Spanish she was both brilliant but not higher educated like her mother.

You see, Isabel’s father thought it was folly to educate a woman. He certainly didn’t appreciate his wife’s high and ranging intellect. He refused to educate his daughters, believing they should just marry or go to work at a menial job that didn’t pay a living wage. Basically, he really didn’t care.

When Isabel’s father died I can only imagine “the come to Jesus meeting” he received from God for such a callous attitude. He caused a lot of pain and economic hardship when he abandoned his wife and nine children. He wanted to go play the flashy high roller.

Read that as money which really belonged to his wife Adele because it came from her father’s estate. By law a man could spend his wife’s inheritance and abandon her and the children without so much as a whimper from society or the government. Whole families were left to their own devices much like what has been happening in today’s America during the Bush years. The Republicans carefully dismantled even the smallest social safety nets to help struggling families and we are seeing the sad results play out today.

Secretary or Nurse

Isabel saw a lot from an unhappy marriage and decided she would educate herself enough to survive in the work place. In her generation the highest a woman could rise was as a secretary, personal assistant or as a nurse. She did them all. She typed manuscripts for authors long before the computer age when women toughed it out because they had bills to pay.

She was a volunteer nurse during World War II, a calling of which she was most proud. She was proud of what she had learned from her mother. Isabel’s mother, Adele, was a well-respected mid-wife nurse that doctors throughout the region would hire to care for women with difficult and dangerous pregnancies; they relied upon her time and again.

Generations Long Denied

Adele’s generation was denied the ability to attend medical school as women were barred from the medical profession as doctors. Many of the best female minds had to content themselves with lower status, less education, less pay and far less social status.

My paternal grandmother, Emma, was outright denied entrance to medical school in the early 1900’s. She was so bitter that for a lifetime she was cold and distant toward all the female members of her own family; she despised her own gender that much.

Isabel, my maternal grandmother, went through at least four marriages that we know of from the public databases. She never would tell us just how many and who, though the family suspected there may have been as many as eight marriages. Split the difference; it was probably six.

Definitely she had a problem with relationship and trust issues just as the children of the divorcing baby boomers have trust issues. Isabel’s first husband was my grandfather and a great guy. He was a WW I veteran and one of the best marksmen in America for over thirty years. He served a number of Presidents as a member of the President’s Honor Guard whenever a President visited New York City. Read that as he helped protect the President.

Isabel just couldn’t trust no matter how good Charles, my grandfather, was to her; she kept waiting for him to abandon her. He didn’t abandon her; she decided to abandon him before he could do it to her. Forty years later those two actually remarried! I guess she finally decided after so much time had passed that maybe she could trust someone with her heart if even a little. He still adored the spitfire and returned to her like a moth to the flame. He was sixteen years older than her and must have had the patience of a saint.

Isabel was a complex woman, intense and often difficult because she could quickly recognize a con coming her way. She had an acute BS detector in the back of her head. Liars would run for cover when she was around. Unlike the women of her generation who were often cowed into submission and timid, she spoke out and stood up against all manner of injustice and cruelty. When anyone gets stepped on long enough they either break or kick back. Isabel was a spitfire kicker to the very end. She was also very spiritual which I figured accounted for her uncanny perception and high intuitive ability.

Voting Rights for Women

She would have really liked Obama. Isabel would have voted for him on her deathbed. She believed in exercising her right to vote even when it failed time and again. Just being allowed to vote was a victory in her generation.

Isabel’s mother was Adele, a tiny woman from southern Spain, so small she looked like an aging ten-year-old to me when I was just three-years-old. Adele was classically educated like any good aristocrat and fluent in seven languages and five dialects. Adele also lived to the ripe old age of 103. Her father died in the Spanish-American War at the hands of the American Navy with too much debt as military generals were wont to do in that time period. There were still enough funds left in the estate for small inheritances but not enough for his three children to live independently on a lavish level.

Old World Networking Through Arranged Marriages

After all, El General was trying to become President of Spain, networking just like people do today. He even tried to buy his way into the Presidency by giving away in arranged marriage his youngest daughter, Adele, at the tender age of seventeen, to his time period’s political President maker, a disgusting man in his late 50’s. Think young fresh Obama Democrat girl given in marriage to mean manipulator Karl Rove or worse and you get the picture. Adele was clearly not interested. This was the first time she ever defied authority and took a stand.

This king maker was also known in Spain’s society circle for having poisoned his first three wives when he grew bored with them. Adele was not interested in becoming number four and dead. Adele decided to run away when Spain sent her father to the American hemisphere to fight the War. Let me tell you; aristocrats run away with some real style!

Her governess went down to the American embassy and talked to the American Ambassador’s governess. You see the then American Ambassador to Spain was returning to America. He had three children who required tutoring on the long voyage back home. The agreement was to give Adele boat passage in exchange for her tutoring skills.

Adele had no bank account and bartering was the order of the day among women in destitute circumstances. Isn’t it interesting how a parallel subculture develops out of great need? Just a few years ago when I visited Greece I saw the same kind of parallel female subculture operating to help women that men discarded, mistreated or controlled through economic means.

Adele had an aunt in America who took her in and helped her get settled. Eventually, Adele fell in love with a cad and foolishly married him. She had lived her entire life in a gilded cage with servants, a governess, and a controlling father, unable to make her own decisions. She was ill equipped in the life experience department to understand what she had married.

Divorce for Previous Generations Meant Branding as a Whore

Why not divorce, you say? Are you kidding? In her time period if a woman made a bad marriage she was obliged to remain for the rest of her life. Society dictated it and if she refused to accept the abuse and leave then it was other women that branded her as a whore.

Once other women branded a woman a whore then men thought it was free rein to abuse her too. She was considered as having no social standing in society. That stigma stuck for the woman’s lifetime like a death sentence. It was better to be pitied and poor than free and scorned and, yes, shunned by all of society. That shunning would make it difficult for a woman to earn a living in a respectable way. Today women experience much the same in many cultures all over the world.

Isabel’s daughter was Marie, my mother. Yes, yet another bad marriage, three generations of them. Marie was genius brilliant as the generation of women before her, kind and gentle, a gifted sensitive artist who was very interested in social issues. Read that as not mean enough to stand up to bullies like my father. My great-grandmother Adele didn’t think twice about taking him on even though she was only about 4’ 8” to his 6’ 4.” When she said, “Jump!” my father practically saluted her and asked meekly, “How high?” He both feared and respected her. How did she accomplish so much with so little, you ask? Read on.

Adele knew my mother was far too gentle to deal with my father. Knowing she was near the end of her life Adele wanted to pass on her knowledge and spiritual anointing to someone. She couldn’t pass it on to my mother as my mother was too fearful to receive it, thereby blocking God’s access and the ability to hold the spiritual energy.

Adele Passes on Her Spiritual Anointing

On my third birthday Adele gifted me with something far better than a silly doll. She gave me knowledge and spiritual awareness. As the daughter of one of Spain’s war generals she knew all about command authority and talked to me about spiritual authority as a pairing. Then she demonstrated again how to deal with my bullying father by commanding him to stand down from his latest bullying and screaming rant.

When Adele left our home it was the last time I saw her for she died a few years later. The woman had to be in her late nineties when she taught me. Yes, I used her knowledge of command and spiritual authority time and again. It was the only way to restore balance and sanity to an insane lifestyle.

It horrified my mother when I first used it as she was convinced my father was going to kill me. It happened that same afternoon Adele left, the day after my third birthday. Like any kid I thought it was great fun to whip out the bully weapon and use it. I ignored the fear in my mother’s eyes and dealt with my father’s foolishness. The authority prevailed because I was operating out of my spirit and not ego. Basically, God was with me.

Sadly, years later when my mother was sick in the hospital she died at the hands of my father. When I was six-years-old I urged her to leave him and leave us behind. I knew I could deal with him. The most pressing reason she was so fearful of him is because he was first generation CIA and those folks are a mean ruthless bunch. They thought nothing of using spouses and the children as their human shields. Too many stories on that front.

Long story short version is that my father and the doctors decided to put down my mother like a dog at the vet’s office. She begged them not to do it as it was against her religious convictions. Do you think atheists care about that? Of course not. As usual her wishes were denied.

How the CIA Forced Family Decisions

Back then a woman was not allowed to leave her CIA spouse without his or The Company’s permission. These guys were the ultimate control freaks. My mother did try to divorce my father two years before her death but he threatened her on a lot of levels, intimidating her back into line. I know because I heard the argument at the age of nine. Often the spouse, like my mother, knew too much and the old CIA didn’t want the public to find out any of their misdeeds. What resulted is a death sentence for those women. I’ve often wondered how many other women suffered a similar fate over the years.

These CIA people lived above the law and constantly abused their authority in every way, even on American soil, long before Bush changed their charter to make it legal to do so which I believe is a mistake that needs to be repealed immediately. It will be interesting to see what Leon Panetta can do with that insane destructive culture. Pray for the man; he is going to need every prayer you can muster.

Had I known what was happening at the time of my mother’s hospitalization I would have dealt with it. My mother begged to see her children before she died. Like most abusive parents my father kept us separated from our mother as she was dying, claiming we were too young to get into the hospital. The reality was he knew I would be furious once I found out what he was up to and would read him the riot act. Besides, he already had his mistress waiting in the wings and it was time to get my mother out of their way. Sound familiar two generations back?

Did I want to rip my father’s head off his shoulders for taking my mother’s life against her will? Yes. Did I do it? Thought seriously about it but decided the best revenge was to let him live into his old age. Turns out that was definitely the best call.

Do I hate my father? No. Did I forgive him? Yes.

Did I waste my life associating with him? No. I divorced him a long time ago and moved forward into a much happier life with a wonderful husband who, still decades later, really is worthy to be called wonderful. A good man is worth more than his weight in gold. I know.

The generational cycle of bad marriage matches is broken in my family’s generation. Maybe now today women will realize their own history. Maybe their husbands will see them with different eyes. Maybe now America will consider the study of history a worthy endeavor.

Older women: please quit being so critical, judgmental and mean to the younger generation of daughters and daughters-in-law. You were younger once and made your mistakes in judgment too. Instead, take a critical look at the younger women in a much kinder way to see their strengths. Help them cultivate those strengths with kinder and patient mentoring. Teach them from your mistakes and the mistakes of generations who went before you.

Change comes slowly over many generations. It could take years to see the positive results of this new law passed by a new President determined to create a paradigm shift in the American mind. Thank you Mr. President. There’s a happy dance rippling throughout American households this week. Let’s hope the party lasts for future generations.

Writing Spiritual Poetry

Healing: Keep Your Joy

Healing: Universal Spiritual Principles That Work

The Healing Waters

The Social Poets

Romancing The Chocolate

hub #29

Photo of yellow rose by strochka @ flickr

Photo of civil rights protest in March 1960 by uwdigitalcollections @ flickr

Photo of Le Prez Obama by PAUL @ flickr

Photo of liberate from cage of fear by alicepopkorn

Photo of woman’s eye in tears by honikum @ flickr

Photo of tears mean nothing when we fail to act by 1nternet hero @ flickr

Photo of browned garden female face of sadness by closelyobserved.com @ flickr

Photo of difficulty trusting by mkorchia @ flickr

Photo of love and marriage ring by Hammer51012 @ flickr