Thursday, December 29, 2005
The last few days have been very quiet. The office has been quiet, things here at home fairly uneventful.
Mom's brother Don and his wife and son and family [6 people total] came over for lunch yesterday. Don's son Bill and his family live in Washington State, and they don't get back here very often. Bill and his wife Wendy have two daughters, Emily and Carly, and they are really cute girls. Mother said Alesia and her Hasty cousins played nicely.Emily is 13 and I think Carly is 10. I asked Alesia yesterday if she liked Emily and Carly and she said enthusiastically "Yes!"
I am sorry I had to work and couldn't get home for the lunch visit.
Don is having colon surgery in January, and I know Mother is concerned about him. It was good for her to see him.
I am listening to the TV as I write. I rarely watch much on TV except the news and occasionally HGTV, but this is a fascinating story. I read a book last year called Pope Joan. There is evidence that a woman around 500 a.d. who disguised herself as a man and became a monk, then Pope. The book is really interesting. Diane Sawyer's story on Primetime is of course a dumbed-down version of the story - part of the reason I don't watch TV - but still something to see.
I need to tell Alesia one day soon that up until just the last 100 years or so, women had almost no rights at all. They were treated as property, incompetents, or worse. When my grandmother was born women couldn't vote.
As recently as 46 years ago when my mother was pregnant with my brother, she was forced to quit her job as a teacher as soon as she started showing. Mother's pay as a teacher was substantially less than a man's, and it was perfectly legal.
I hate seeing e-mails talking about the "good old days" - those days had as much evil as now, only nobody talked about it. Those days included sexism, racism, unbridled pollution, and other terrible things.
In Russia and China, pollution makes the air almost unbreathable. Women are treated terribly. Racism is in the open. Those are the "good old days" still in existence, right now. Many Chinese folks kill female babies because they prize males so highly.
I think sexism is absolutley evil. That's why I am proud to be an Episcopalian - the only Protestant denomination that lets women be totally equal to men.
I want Alesia to live in a world where she is not limited just because she's female. I pray I can give her the confidence to do whatever she wants, follow her dreams.
