my grandmother

[Absaroka]

I think there probably are differences between men and women, else why would transexuals be so adamant that they are one and not the other? Why would they report the different ways they experience a myriad of things when they begin to transition? But I do not think frailty, vulnerability, and all that other stuff is one of the differences.

[Debra Russell]

I can't say what it "feels" like to be a woman but I think the differences are hormonal! I do know that I envy the their gentelness, the "feeling pretty" and overall and being able to express that side of their nature. We are all very much the same otherwise and do what it takes to live our lives. As men and women we both perform a role that is better fitted to our gender; I am happy with that role as a male but want the best of both worlds. Unfortunately all we as cders can do is attempted to know the better half --- we will never know it all.

[Robyn Katie]

Hi Sisters,

Thanks to Andrea for keeping this thread revived. It's a fascinating topic. Couple of quick thoughts:

First, I think in these grandmother stories the topic of femininity, as we understand it, is just irrelevant. Certainly in that era there were very feminine women (where Victoria's Secret got its inspiration), but they weren't out on the farms, they were in cities and pampered.

Femininity to farm women in that era was just a foreign country. Lipstick? Frilled collar? (Let alone eye shadow, perfume or scented soap.) None of that, and not bustles and furbelows either. They wore plain dollar dresses from the dry goods store because women by rule wore skirts and shouldn't wear pants. Their dresses, though, were closely equivalent to their men's overalls and shirt, pure practicality. They got muddy, dirty, did chores all day and cooked too, and fell into bed at night exhausted. I've known some.

My own paternal grandmother was not a farm woman. But she was the same practical sort, as wife of an American civil engineer in China she had no luxuries, never was the least feminine. Though very loving and supportive she probably never thought once about her womanhood. She did wear a string of dime store "pearls" but was never seen in anything more svelte than a Mother Hubbard.

Nowadays farm women, even if poor and work-driven, can afford, and are encouraged to want, lipstick and other goodies from the pharmacy in town. Media has changed everything, and even the most down-home, hard-handed, hard-bitten girl knows personal adornment is possible and desirable. In our grandmothers' times, first, such things were unavailable in the boonies, and second, church discouraged such things (vanity!) if it did not condemn them as an abomination, Jezebel, Whore of Babylon, etc, and a road straight to perdition.

In that milieu, for a country woman to act feminine would have been for her to risk her soul's salvation. Moreover it would get in the way of her chores, and people would wonder who she was trying to impress, etc. etc.
Those days are gone here in the USA and the western world in general, but I'd suggest that poor downtrodden women the world around may still be very much like our grandmothers in this.

Consider a kerchiefed farm woman in Bosnia. A Chinese peasant woman in Urumchi, An upcountry Peruvian woman, or a dirt-farm wife almost anywhere. Expression of sexual identity? Just getting the chores done is the point, and having once attracted a husband, all further thought of that sort is considered irrelevant, almost indecent, since it isn't useful and there's no time or occasion for it.

Recall too that womanhood expresses itself differently according to culture, so that, maybe, in our grandmothers' time it best presented itself as superb competence at running a farm, keeping a household, raising kids and seeing to their futures, all without self-adornment or self-consideration. My grandmother never considered herself one moment, she was too busy thinking of and for others, and making sure they were all right.

I'd say we 21st century Western Worlders are something of an exception in history, most of which worked against all the ideals of feminine identity and behavior we set such store by.

I've had my experience of farm life, worked farm work, and (much as I love the country life) I don't idealize it as some do. In my experience it's hard work, can make people mean, saps the life away ... and can leach the spirit as well. Sure, it can be nourishing, but so often it's not. In the 70s when my friends were going back to the land where farming was concerned I knew better.

I thank my lucky stars we live as we do. That we have the options we do, and the leisure to delight in, and care about, our femininity and the femininity of our loved girls and women. That we can throw kisses to life and doll up and get pretty.

Love, Robyn Katie

[Davita]

My 3 grandmothers were certainly individuals, but they shared a few things. They were giving women and caring. We grandkids were everything, but we were not always spoiled rotten. My grandparents still believed in appropriate behavior and punishment was given as appropriate. For the most part, my grandmothers were the matriarchs. As such, they were fairly self-sufficient. They didn't do manly things, but certainly could command men (boys, sons, daughters' husbands etc.). All kids were equals when it came to chores. I could be involved in "womanly" chores as much as anyone.

[Andrea Elise]

This thread has caused me to think, remember, of all things, my grandmother.

My paternal grandmother. Who had three beautiful children, one of whom died at the young age of five from scarlet fever. I have often wondered how my grandmother dealt with that. How awful it must have been for her.

My grandmother on my mothers side I did not know nearly as well.

Both of my paternal grandparents were ordained ministers. My grandma did not preach from the pulpit as women in the church were very much secondary to the men. Instead, she did Bible study classes and Sunday school classes, was very active in the womens and youth groups. She felt that in order to be a proper ministers wife that she needed to be well grounded in the church and the Bible. She wrote many articles for the churches monthly publication and did nearly all of the work on the churches Sunday bulletin.

In that day, in the church, makeup and jewelry were not worn, wedding bands the exception, dresses for the women were what was worn. In the entirety of my life with my grandparents, I never once saw her in anything other than a dress. Grandfather a suit on Sundays and work clothes for the rest. A woman in pants was most certainly a brazen hussy, a woman with make up nothing less than a tramp and a harlot!

Grandmother ran the home and grandfather did the rest. I recall her as one of the gentlest women I have ever known. Lady like and composed, for the most part. Only once do I recall her composure ever slipping, confronted with some problem she could not solve, standing in the middle of the kitchen on the verge of tears, literally wringing her hands, and looking at me saying "I just don't know what to do!"

I am unable to recall the cause of her distress.

But she was one of the most feminine woman I have ever known. She and my mother. Meals were always on time. Frozen dinners a very occasional treat (for me, the dumb little kid). I never saw her in a robe, never saw her hair in disarray. She was the epitome of propriety and manners, her house was always spotlessly clean and all was in its place.

Once, when I was very small, I recall a bath night. Fascinated with submarines and war ships, I had some small ball bearings and was bombing the ships in the bath tub by spitting them out of my mouth in hopes of sinking the hapless little ships they might strike.

Something surprised me and I swallowed a ball bearing. I must have yelled out in dismay and grandmother rushed in to the bathroom. When I told her my idiots tale of woe, I can still see her standing there, shaking her finger at me and frustratedly saying "Dumb, dumb, dumb!"

And she was right!

Ah, the tribulations of naval warfare!

It was all so very Norman Rockwell.

I would think that my grandmother was my role model. She was beautiful in every way and I miss her very much. We had many days that she took us to the city park, the city swimming pool, she would make my sister and I ice cream floats and sundaes.

It was a wonderful time in my life.

As to the ships in the bath tub, that all ended when I discovered that war killed people and that when the little ships sank, all the little men drowned. I could never bring myself to do it again.

But I still remember to this day my grandmothers gentle touch, the softness of her hands and her gentle loving smile. She always smelled so wonderful!

I miss her

Andrea Elise

[Andrea Elise]

For perspective for my grandparents lives in the church. When they started out in the ministry, they were paid in chickens, eggs, milk and meat. What money grandfather got was by farm work and logging. My previous post relates a time later in their lives when life was much better for them.

Still, my grandfather had kept ledgers. He tracked every penny earned and spent for his entire life.

He once told me, "If you don't know where your money is spent, you'll just loose it. You'll be broke and you won't know why!"

Andrea Elise

[Paula G]

Reading these stories is fascinating, and for me highlights some of the differences between the old world and the new. Both my Grandmothers lived an urban live in cities that can trace their history back over 2000 years (London and Oxford). I never knew my maternal Grandmother, she died before my first birthday, my Mother had the job of nursing her mother through terminal cancer, while I was a new born, hence I was baptised in Oxford while my Father lived in London. My Mother's parents lived what for the times was a pretty comfortable life, as far as I can understand it my Grandmother always had at least one maid, and my mother had a nanny. From what my Grandfather told me, my Mothers memories and the photos I have seen this Grandmother was a very feminine woman, who certainly seemed to enjoy silks and lace, pretty delicate porcelain and many of the finer things that live had to offer her. Of course she was in a privileged position, but was not that unusual, this was a period when most women would have experienced “domestic service” from one side or the other. Although she did have to see her husband go off to the “Great War” he had a “good war” and saw no action, I suspect that other than the end the worst parts of her live were losing a sister at quite a young age, and the bombing during the second war.

My paternal Grandmother was the eldest child of a German immigrant, she had 10 siblings, but only two children. When my father was young they had a family football team made up of just him, his uncles and cousins! Both her husband and her father were butchers working initially in Smithfield and Leadenhall markets. Although her life was harder in some ways than modern women’s due to different technology, in others maybe it wasn’t so bad. A woman was not expected to go out to work after marriage, and a married man, at least a skilled one could earn sufficient to keep a family. What made the life of this grandmother hard was losing her husband early, he survived the trenches of the Great War only die in his 60s just before I was born, then losing her son in law a couple of years later, as my aunt then had to go out to work full time, my Grand Mother had to “mother” my cousins.

I don't know how much of this is the difference between urban and rural and how much is new and old world, however it does have a very different flavour to some of these other histories

[Leeza]

I have enjoyed the stories you girls have wrote about your grandmothers. I am afraid mine is quit different.

I only met my paternial gradmother a couple of times and I was young when that happened so don't remember much about her other than she was short and granddad was tall.

We lived next door to my maternial grandmother. I wasn't very old before I started loosing respect for her and the older I got the less respect I had for her.

My sister and I both felt like the perverbiale red headed step kids as far as she was concerned especialy when other cousins were around. The other cousins could do no wrong, but my sister and I weren't that lucky.

It didn't help much that she did not like our Dad and showed it any way she could without being real obvious about it. It only took her 23 years to get Dad out of the picture.

Some good things about her though, she did help with the canning though she hated the vegitable garden. She raised a beautiful flower garden and often gave the flowers away with a lot of them going to the church. She could bake good pies and put on a good meal wether it be for 2 or 20 with plenty of food.

She also encouraged my sister and I to particapate in chuch music by doing deuts or trios with her.

Sorry girls, but my memories of my grand mother are not the best.

Leeza

[Absaroka]

Thanks everyone for the additional grandmother stories.

One comment, to Robyn. Maybe this is just a question of semantics. But the point of this thread was to discuss what consitutes feminine, with the idea of feminine is what women are. Therefore a woman in a farm dress chopping wood, because she is a woman, is by definition feminine. It's the idea of what constitutes feminine that changes.