Accidental Feminists - Review

"Accidental Feminists" is me! I truly wish I had been asked to write my story for this book (but I wasn't). Jane Caro is one year younger than me, and very similar to my history... well, the 'normal' side of it. I didn't go to private schools - I went to very good state schools (Hamilton, New Zealand: Melville Primary, Melville Intermediate and Melville High School). So did everyone in my family.

Chapter 3 wrote about "Dutiful daughters, wives, mothers and grandmothers", and I remember them all! Dad's mum was widowed and didn't remarry. Mum's mum had walked away from the domestic violence in her first marriage and remarried into a wonderful home. Mum married and started with a boy, who ended up very young (3 months old) in hospital where he stayed for a year - nearly dying more than once. Mum had worked before she got married, but didn't work in paid employment any more, yet she was on the disabled board for my brother. Dad was a carpenter, and with one disabled son and four normal girls he supported the whole family.

Caro wrote about attending church when she was very young (she sang 'All things bright and beautiful...' which I sang too). Caro left church and became atheist - so did I.

Caro went to university. So did I, but I didn't finish the degree because I didn't see the value of it way back then. I did a Post Grad Diploma at CQU six years ago, when I was 56. Perhaps that should count now, but I no longer use OHS because I can't. My story, not Caro's.

When I had my two children, the first one was pushed out under epidural. The second one was born in a different hospital - Taupo - which didn't have epidural, so I gave birth after so much pain and a lot of screaming. I'd felt pretty stupid then, but I've heard the same births so many times, usually on tv. Caro and I only had two children each. Very good on you Caro - we certainly didn't need any more than that... except I have read too many stories about HUGE families in churches. Why, for Pete's sake??

I am now 62 - 63 this year. I am an 'invalid', I am a 'madwoman', I have 'hysterics' and I'm still looked on as 'the weaker sex'. In fact, before I had my stroke 5 years ago I was fired from the company I'd worked for, for 7 years. A very different manager, he was. Not a 'good' manager, but he was male.

Caro wrote of women out-living men, especially these days. I don't think that's good for me because I live alone, now, and I couldn't live alone for another 30 years! Caro wrote about 'Invisibility v Independence'. She said that "[f]eminism may be an incomplete project, but it has never been as influential or as powerful as it is today." I truly wish that was right.

Well written, Jane Caro.