I'm watching Mona Lisa Smile. It's one of my favorite films, not only because it's cast with some of my favorite actresses, but because it tackles what the 50s were really like for a young woman. All the oppression and basically brain washing. After WWII, women were sent back to their kitchens and told not to work, but instead to marry and raise a family. Let their husbands rule the nest. During WWII, women were making the decisions and running the stores, factories, and farms. Now they are being told they are not smart enough to do so. Thank goodness the entire generation did not fully buy into it. They pushed back a bit, but their daughters in the 60s and 70s really pushed the women's movements. Without that fight, women today would still not be able to choose to have a career versus a family. The women of the 80s saw some equal pay and pushed women being executives, but they still mostly had to choose career over family. The 90s and today's women are now fighting to prove that they can have the career AND the family. We no longer have to choose.
Unfortunately, down here in the south, culture is still run by 50s thinking...men in charge and women at home pregnant and barefoot. It disgusts me. I am the first woman in my family to break this pattern. I will also be the first to leave the south permanently. I truly love the beauty of the city I was raised in, but cannot love the "values". I am ready to embark on a journey where I can live in a city surrounded with new ideas, free thinking, and most of all...education. Goodbye, Dixie. I'll still visit once in a while, but I will not stay and stand by while more generations of ignorance are raised.
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