I think we need to talk about the hatred of women.

[Tumbulu]

101. I don't know how old you are, but I am in my mid 50's

My mother during the depression was awarded a 4 yr scholarship to attend a University. She could not accept it because in her large immigrant family the girls were expected to take the highest paying job they could get out of high school and then that money was used to send the boys to college. All her brothers graduated for college and it was a good strategy for the large family. My mother was brilliant and was a fabulous mother and then when we were grown ran my dad's business and was tremendous there. She was never bitter, it was just the way things were then.

In my generation, I worked my way through college, although my brother had his way paid.

The implication of all this is that men used to be sort of coddled by the women. The women who had the kind of intelligence that one utilizes in a University were really not allowed to go. The only reason I was able to work my way through is because I am a work-a-holic.

Also, there is still a great deal of discrimination within workforces and women without degrees do not get the job offers that men without degrees get.

I have a cousin (my age) who made way more money than I ever did as an electrician. He has already retired. He thought that I was crazy using so many good years of my life to go to college, then graduate school and then the Peace Corps no less- no money!!! There is no way with my body type- wimpy- that I would be able to do the work that he did. I work in agriculture and with the limited physical strength that I have to be effective I have to do things where strength is not required. Persistence and patience and monotony, yes. But I cannot attach implements to my tractor myself, etc.

And so I think that what is going on is that 60 years ago men were helped by unpaid and underpaid women all the time - but now that is over. I do not personally feel obligated to give my career up for a man, although I am of the cusp of the generation that still did that.

We were supposed to "catch a good man"..... Sneakily use our "attractive looks" to hoodwink some poor guy into marriage and then saddle him with endless miserable expectations and a family to support. I do not think that that model was fair either, and the girls that I grew up with were repulsed by this strategy that our aunties advocated.