But ain't I a woman

The other day Mephistopheles brought me a print out of rules for husbands and wives from the late 1800's. I've seen similar things before and I love collecting old books on how women should behave. I currently have a sex manual from the 1930's and I used to have a revolutionary book called "What every young woman should know" from 1905 (my whack-ass mother has a tendency towards cleptomania and it's been gone for a while).

There is one main theme through these books- it assumes that the reader is of a class where the wife can stay home. It's a pretty steadfast delusion that until the the 1970's women didn't work. But it was only certain women that didn't work. Poor women have always worked- it was never a choice to stay home or to to earn a living- it was work or starve. Even today, the argument over women working outside the home only applies to a small minority of women who have the financial resources to actually have a choice. But the arguments and condescension from women who have the ability to choose not to work really piss me off. If they think more women should be barefoot in the kitchen- then maybe they should pay women to be barefoot in the kitchen so we all get a choice.

In my family, where women have always been what was previously called high-spirited (or independent) everyone works. I was fortunate that I could take a year or so off when The Kid was born, but that is because childcare would have cost more than a 20 year old can generally make.

Mephistopheles comes from a family that has been securely lodged in the upper-middle class for a long time. The women didn't have to work. He sometimes forgets that this may have been the social ideal of the time- but it is not really the whole truth.

So, I thought I would give you all Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman" to remind you all that women work and always have. We haven't always been paid for it, but it's never been bonbons and soap operas for most of us.

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?Delivered 1851Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

Next time someone says something about when women didn't work- ask them when in the history of the world have women not worked?