Each year after Samhain, I start my winter retreat, a slow withdrawal from everything that so many people hold dear. I don’t want the frenzy of the pre-Christmas retail blitz. I want to walk my land in silence and reconnect to the truth. I didn’t have a question to ponder at first. As the days grew shorter, I find myself thinking about the hardships that my family endured on the home front of the war. My mother spoke of the additional responsibilities she took on as the men in her office were called up to serve. There was a great sense of having another cuppa and carrying on. I understand that, and carry on they did. I was a bit more surprised at the wistful tone that crept in about when she told what happened when the men came back, now viewed as heroes, carrying the assumption that everything should go back as it was before the war, and could the office ‘girl’ please get them a tea? The 1950s were a shock to many a capable woman.
The first wave of feminism drew some of its energy from stories like this, and from Rosie the riveter, and Queen Elizabeth training as a mechanic.
I don’t know how displaced women’s rights will become in that President elect’s regime. Part of resistance is keeping the old truths alive and not normalising the propaganda and the untruths that are its foundation. Remember all the achievements of women throughout the world. Even in the US, which has lagged behind the rest of the world on this, women have held every meaningful political office, except for POTUS. This is the pinnacle upon which we stand, and we will rise up again and rise even higher.
Resist. Remember.
Tales from the jolly bungalow 