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Feminism vs. Just Gittin’ It Done…
Let’s be clear: I am no feminist. I do, however, write stories about strong-willed women who overcome some pretty stout obstacles. Often, my heroines are based on real people.
So, why am I not a feminist? Isn’t modern feminism basically the belief women should be treated the same as men? One dictionary defines it as advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men.
Hmmm. Let’s not give that platform a blank check. The FACT is women are different from men and when two things ARE inarguably different, they don’t always need to be treated the same. For example, only women can get pregnant. A woman shouldn’t be allowed to kill a baby growing in her uterus under the guise of women’s rights, or pro-choice or whatever pretty euphemism you’d like to use.
Furthermore, God’s Word draws a distinction between men and women, calling us the weaker vessel. Weaker. Not defective. Physically weaker.
Generally speaking, women didn’t sail the seas to find a new country. Women didn’t hack trails out of the wilderness to see what was over the next hill. Women didn’t trek deep into the heart of the mountains to trap beavers. When gold was discovered in California, women didn’t saddle their horses and ride hell-bent-for-leather to stake a claim.
Feminists would say slow female participation in these events was due to a society that held women back. Everything from unfair property laws to corsets, to educational barriers kept us from tackling great, ground-breaking, destiny-defining adventures. I say phooey. That is a bogus construct.
Women—namely, American women—have always done what they needed to do when they needed to do it. Especially if they really wanted to do it. Our female ancestors lived on the frontier, fought in the Revolutionary War, drove their own wagons west, panned for their own gold, opened their own freight lines, ranched on the edge of Indian Territory, won the right to vote. These endeavors were harder for them. Yet, rather than whine about their circumstances, like their physical limitations and ignorant men, they forged ahead.
And did all this without playing the victim, amplifying their own sense of self-importance (read “selfish” here), or casting off their moral compass, along with their femininity.
I believe the content of a person’s character is the true determining factor in their success. You can’t keep a good woman down and smart men eventually figure that out.
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Speaking of strong-willed women, you should check out my book Grace be a Lady. Yep, it’s the tale of a feisty heroine who did what she had to do without selling her soul in the process.
When You Have to Streeeeetch to Cross a Creek–Don’t
I got tickled the other day reading a book about pioneer women in South Dakota. Have you ever seen those videos of young tourists doing amazingly stupid things like taking selfies too close to the roaring waves or attempting to feed a buffalo at Yellowstone? Sometimes things go very wrong.
For a pioneer girl, Sadie wasn’t much smarter than some of our modern kiddoes. Back around 1880, she went for a walk on a hot summer day on her farm to pass some time and admire God’s handiwork. Not long into her stroll, she noticed a nice, plump cluster of grapes hanging over the stream. Simply too tempted to be smart, Sadie started making her way across the swift-moving water by stepping–sometimes streeeetching–from one large rock to the next.
Well, she got a little too intent on watching the current and had a spell of vertigo. Yep, fell headfirst into the water. Years later, she said she could still remember what the bottom of that stream looked like. However, before she even had a chance to panic, she found herself rising to the surface and then being pulled by the collar to the shore.
A tall, erect, young Indian boy wrangled her out of the water, snatched her to her feet, then grabbed her shoulders and proceeded to shake her violently. Before she could react to this new danger, the brave disappeared, slipping away into the shadowy forest.
She said for the rest of her life she often wondered what the purpose was of the shaking.
This comment has me thinking maybe Sadie was a bit of a dull bulb. Which could explain how she nearly drowned in the first place.
Well, here’s my best guess, hon, on what the brave who saved your life may have been thinking as he was rattling your brains: “Dumb, dumb, dumb girl. You could have drowned. For what? A handful of grapes? What were you thinking? Go back to your farm and plant something.”
Nellie Cashman—Was this Angel Counting on the Rosary and Betting on the Flag?
Though the name of my blog is Patriots in Lace, I consider any woman who came to America not just to take, but to give something back, a patriot. That’s why I want you to meet Nellie Cashman, a boundary-pushing, territory-exploring Irish woman who saw America as the Land of Opportunity. She came, she saw, she conquered, she gave back.
In 1850, at about the age of five, Nellie immigrated to Boston with her sister Fanny and widowed-mother. The three spent almost fifteen years together there, but then relocated west to San Francisco around 1872, give or take. Nellie and her mother, both of whom apparently had an adventurous streak, decided to move on to the bustling, untamed mining town of Pioche, NV. They only stayed a few years, but Nellie was deeply involved with the Catholic church there, helping with fundraisers and bazaars. When her aging mother decided Pioche was a little too wild for a senior citizen, Nellie took her to live with her now-married sister in San Francisco. Stunningly, Nellie then headed north alone to British Columbia to another rough-and-rowdy mining town. She opened a boarding house in the Cassiar District and tried her hand at mining.
Now, most girls in this situation, hanging around with such an unsavory crowd, might get into mischief, forget their morals. Herein lies the quirky thing about Nellie: she loved to help people, sometimes through hell and high water and avalanches. In the winter of 1874-75, Nellie took a trip to Victoria where she helped establish the Sisters of St. Ann Hospital. Over the coming decades, she would continue to be a stalwart supporter of this hospital, and several others. She also helped destitute miners, making sure benevolence funds were available to them in whatever town she landed.
She is most famous, though, for what she did on the way home. Traveling back to Cassiar, she heard a blizzard had stranded dozens, if not more, of the folks from the district, and they were experiencing a scurvy epidemic, to boot. Nellie immediately hired men and sleds, acquired medicine and supplies and started out for Cassiar. It took the group 77 days in unimaginable conditions to reach the miners. Nellie then worked tirelessly to nurse the folks back to health.
Her feat was so astounding, so brazen, so fearless, the story was picked up by the newspapers. With good cause, she came to be known to the miners as their “Angel of Mercy.”
Nellie was a legitimate legend.
She was also restless, constantly on the move, from one raunchy mining town to the next. After the death of her sister, she continued to feed her wanderlust, but with five nephews and nieces in tow. To keep food on the table, she bought and sold restaurants, and even owned and worked her own claims. She spent several years in Tombstone, AZ where she rubbed shoulders with larger-than-life figures like Wyatt Earp and Johnny Behan. Her faith, however, was as ingrained on Nellie’s heart as cactus in the dessert. Even in wild-and-wooly Tombstone, she worked to build Tombstone’s first hospital and Roman Catholic church.
Nellie did a lot of philanthropic work, but the lady was no push-over. When her rights were challenged, she went to court. She won some cases, and she lost some, but she managed to raise five upstanding citizens and keep her mines working. When Nellie passed away in 1925, she did so in the Sisters of St. Ann hospital that she had funded for nearly fifty years.
I heard someone complain today about how her own life had never really amounted to anything because of a lack of opportunity. Nellie saw opportunity everywhere: opportunities to succeed, opportunities to help others. The Real American Way.
It’s all around us, just open your eyes…
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Ladies in Defiance 