I always thought I would someday be the mother of daughters;turns out that is not going to happen.  I couldn’t be happier with my two sons, and would not change them for anything. But, in truth, when I found out from the ultrasound that the second child looked “highly likely male”, I shed tears in the privacy of my car. There was little chance there would be a third baby: we’d started later in life, and according to our planning and energy, two would be just fine.  So, no little girls for me, and I have since grieved the loss of a dream, as well as reveling in being “Queen Bee” in my household of men.

I was the product of a female-dominated household, run by my mother after my father’s death with the help of my grandmother who did most of the cooking and caretaking when my mother was at work. We were four girls and two boys, but my sister and I were eldest - the little moms. The boys, maybe because they had no father, were given special dispensation to be “boys”, rough and tumble, more naughty, less expected of them in terms of household chores.  In my house, the food provider, the bill payer, the disciplinarian and the bottom line was a woman - my mother. I was used to the idea of a woman in power, and so became a proto-feminist during high school and college days. It was my hope to raise feminist daughters – that is, confident, powerful and comfortable in who they are.

Lately, I’m not so sure. Some of the things I read and hear about relating to young women are terrible.  There is this stupid ad on the radio: Give your girlfriend a gift certificate for cosmetic surgery for Valentines Day – “Make her a perfect 10”. Makes me sick. Not the surgery per se; an individual may want it for some specific purpose – droopy eyelids, a crooked nose. That I can see. Or, perhaps a parent for a child, after careful thought about cost, risks, and emotional issues.  But a gift for Valentines? 

Then there was the story on the 2020 TV show of the teen girl who is suing Starbucks, because her 24 year old manager told her she had to have sex with him, and she felt she couldn’t say no.  The story claims that research shows that a high number of teens report sexual advances from adults at work.  Well, duh! Who doesn’t know that?  Perhaps because I had so many low-level crappy jobs when I was growing up, it was a fact of life, just another obstacle to maneuver around:  grabbed from behind, kissed in the elevator,asked to dinner by my boss on the first day of the job.  But even in those circumstances, when I really, truly needed a job, I never let it continue, even if it meant quitting the job.  Watching the show, I thought, “What’s wrong with this girl that she doesn’t know to say “No”, “Back off”, or just getaway from the situation – and she had involved parents and lots of money.  What made her self-esteem so low that she  tolerated it? Accepted it?  And then it hit me like a blow in the stomach, “Why should she be subject to it in the first place?  Why was I?”  It took me a long time to process that idea,that just because she was a young woman, any young woman — myself or my hypothetical daughter - why should she have to deal with that at the workplace, and a system that allows it to happen, punishing the perpetrator only after the fact, because the mother finally stepped in?   Wow, I was thinking, I put up with a lot of s…t and didn’t think it could be otherwise. Today, the problem is still there, but the young women seem even less equipped to deal with it. Sad.

Finally, the Mean Girls in South Hadley, Mass.who taunted a 15 year-old girl, recently arrived from Ireland, for dating an “off-limits”senior football player until she finally hung herself.  They followed her, insulted her, made bad remarks on Facebook, harassed her unto death. And then after the fact, posted comments on-line that were smug and unrepentant. So far, no consequences, no punishment, and the question remains who is to blame: kids? School? Parents? Unkindness has been around forever, but this kind of cruelty in educated, comfortable young women seems a new development.  Fueled by what?  What has made it so crucially important to have this brash on-line life, posting hundreds of pictures, but an inability to feel empathy, compassion for someone in person - someone not so different from yourself?