SheWoman

“Chauvinist. C-H-A-U-V-A-N-I-S-T...right, Mom?”

“Close, sweetie, only one letter off!”

I was in second grade sitting around the dinner table with my family talking about my P.E. teacher.  Who knows now what his chauvinistic offenses were, but 8-year-old Jennifer was pissed, not to mention a fabulous speller.  No doubt my mom was proud.

Growing up, I was fortunate to be raised in a home with a strong, motivated, independent mother as my role model, and an equally amazing father.  But this isn’t about him, just know that he’s great because I am about to talk up my mom a lot right now. 

My mom is the shit.  Lately, as I have gotten older and less bratty, I am so obsessed with my mom and so appreciative of everything she has accomplished and given to her family.  I look at her pictures from when she was a teenager, a beautiful small town girl, long flowing hair and a beaming smile, and I see just how far she has come.  She has turned that shy, cheerleader girl into a successful and respected career woman and the foundation of an amazing family.  I love listening to her on the phone when she talks to coworkers or seeing her in action at work.  She is so professional and skilled at what she does; it is inspiring and fills me with so much pride.  That’s my mom!  It is fun to see this whole other side of the woman who cleaned up my vomit when I was a kid and also the day after my 21^st birthday.   She was the caregiver who nursed all our illnesses and bruises and broken hearts.  She let me go through my tomboy phase and wear boy shoes and clothes.  She was the one who sat with me all night the first time I was in the E.R. with my heart problems, a picture of calm as we chatted and laughed through the night in the dark room.  She is still the one that my sister, Kristen, calls for recipe/cooking help.  She is the female role model for three very amazing daughters; please don’t mind my tooting my own horn. 

            But one thing I really hated when I was younger was that my mom never seemed to embrace my crushes and flings the way I wanted her to.  I wanted her to be all giddy with me and instantly invite the boys over for dinner and to holidays and to basically start planning our wedding together.  I didn’t understand her apprehensiveness or her slow way of getting to know someone before she embraced them.  I was jealous of other girls whose moms loved their boyfriends instantly.  My mom wasn’t mean, not at all; in fact, there have been at least three boyfriends who went to my mom for some motherly wisdom or a heart-to heart and actually had a little tear fest with her.  No, not mean, just careful.  She is careful about who her daughters choose to let into our lives.  And although it took me a long time to recognize this, it is something that I am forever grateful for because I always knew that she was on my side.  When the boyfriend was gone, she didn’t miss him, she didn’t say “Oh that’s too bad I really liked this one.”  She said, “Good, you can do better and I know he isn’t the one for you.” And she would let me cry in bed for a little while, but she always got me laughing again. 

            She taught me not to take shit from people, especially men, because a lot of them will try to get away with it if you let them.  I thank God that I was raised by a woman who had opinions and goals of her own.  One of my little inside jokes with my mom is to sing that rap song, you know it… “Where she get that ass from? She get it from her mama.”  She loves it when I sing that (or maybe I just love it when I sing that) and it works with pretty much anything.  “Where she get her feisty from? She get it from her mama.”   

An ex-boyfriend recently told me, with a sour expression on his face, no doubt after I shot him down for saying something stupid,  “You’re like SheWoman, Defender of All Women.” I told him that I am totally making that my new superhero name.  I don’t think it was entirely meant as a compliment, but I sure as hell took it as one, and I definitely get it from my mama. 

            Girl Power? Oh you know I was allll over that.  And “Girls Rule, Boys Drool”? Probably written all over my notebooks.  I grew up with all women in my house except for my father, don’t feel bad for him, he loves it, he’s got three Daddy’s Girls out of the deal.  There was obviously a lot of estrogen running around in my house but without a brother it left us girls room to get to fill some of those typical boy roles.  I’m a girly-girl, no doubt, but I also played with army guys and Lego’s, loved helping my dad build things in the garage, and we already mentioned that my mom let me wear boy clothes.  My sisters took care of the sports things.  So, even though I was a sucker for glitter, I was also very convinced that boys were pretty stupid and I was better than them at almost everything.  I was appalled, and honestly still am, that we have never had a female president, that women weren’t valued as much in the workplace or many places for that matter, and that boys I actually knew had the audacity to suggest that women should not be able to vote or drive or work.  There are still guys like that out there.  To all you “men” who think like this, fuck you.  Luckily, because of my strong mother, I grew up knowing that being a female in no way lessens our value as human beings. 

            My mom says that I was born in the wrong decade, and that if she had lived in a bigger city when she was a teenager she would have been out there with all those feminists burning their bras and I would have been right there with her.  Marching for Women’s Rights.  I am Woman, hear me roar!

            So, SheWoman? Yes. Proud of it.