Hear us Roar!

 

By: Marcia King-Gamble

www.lovemarcia.com

This month’s topic Strong Women resonates strongly with me. I am a woman who grew up with trailblazers like Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug. These were powerful feminists of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s and the two were founders of The National Women’s Political Caucus.

This group billed itself as a multi-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to recruiting, training, and supporting women who sought elected and appointed offices in government. But they were so much more. Credit for founding The National Women’s Political Caucus should also go to Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, Fannie Lou Hamer, Jill Ruckelshaus, and Mildred Jeffrey.

Now back to the women’s movement which exploded in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Until then, in certain states a husband forcing sex on his wife was not legally considered rape. Any purchases made all belonged to her husband, even if these items were purchased with her own earnings. Back then, married women could not obtain a credit card or get credit without her husband’s signature.

My personal experience with this was twenty plus years ago when I moved South from New York. I was in a commuting situation and opened a checking account in my name only. My husband opened his own account to be used when he came into town, yet the banker without permission, linked both accounts. When I questioned my balance, I was rudely told that as a married woman our accounts were the same.

You can imagine how upset I was when one day I discovered I had almost zero in the account and discovered that my husband’s purchases were being charged to my account. Let’s just say after my conversation with the banker, he probably has never been the same.  Adding fuel to the fire, he implied he would be reaching out to a co-worker (male and my counterpart), to let him know I was belligerent. 

A comparable situation occurred when I attempted to buy a place on my own. Mind you, I was using my own funds, and yet was told my husband needed to sign off on the paperwork so that I could obtain my apartment. Now really?

Back in the day, some states even barred women from jobs that required lifting more than 25 pounds. California employment ads often discriminated by gender and race. Nationally, firefighting and police work was restricted to men. Even women broadcasters were rare and paid far less than their male counterparts. Jobs that required authoritative figures were often off limits to women. Law and medical schools had female quotas. And on average, women made 59 cents for every dollar a man made, even when doing similar work. The largest gender pay gap involved women of color. Crude references were often made about women’s hormonal imbalance. Interesting, because even today women have to deal with the B word, while a man who might say the same thing Let me not digress. This post is about strong women. Do you think most men could make it through labor?

Yet here we are today, and while some progress has been made, women, more so than men, are still the objects of sexual harassment, hence the “Me Too Movement.” Thanks to Activist, Tarana Burke who created this group in 2006, women have come out of the woodwork to share their experiences about unwanted advances. They have shared painful and embarrassing memories kept hidden for years, fearing repercussion.

Women. You are my Sheroes! For years we have had to be strong, even stronger in  our silence.

To paraphrase, singer, Helen Reddy’s words – “We are women. Hear us Roar!”

USA bestselling romance writer, Marcia King-Gamble originally hails from a sunny Caribbean island where the sky and ocean are the same mesmerizing shade of blue. This former travel industry executive has spent most of life in the United States. A National Bestselling author, Marcia has penned over 34 books and 8 novellas. She has contributed to Michael Fiore’s DigitalRomanceInc and served as a moderator on the now defunct eHarmony advice boards. Having witnessed the bad, the ugly, and the not so good in relationships, she still prefers to write about happily ever after. Caring for her animal family keeps her grounded and sane.

Visit Marcia at www.lovemarcia.com or “friend” her on Facebook: http://bit.ly/1MlnrIS

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You Should See Us Now - by Eleri Grace

This month's theme of strong women in literature and history is TAILOR-MADE for me and my novels! Don't misunderstand - I know so many authors are strong women and write kick-ass heroines set in all periods of history. 

But my Red Cross Girl heroines bucked tradition and normative gender roles for the era *before* they then went overseas and became larger-than-life heroines. I believed their accomplishments and bravery had gone unnoticed far too long and resolved to do my best to write novels that did justice to their amazing stories. 

The American Red Cross hired only 1 in 6 applicants for the overseas staff positions. They wanted women who had a college degree and some professional work experience. They also evaluated applicants for a host of other character and personal attributes -- ARC wanted women who were adaptable self-starters, who were resilient and able to handle long days of demanding work paired with social expectations, who could handle themselves in a male-dominated environment, and who were charming, cheerful, and classy. The typical Red Cross Girl was independent, spirited, and driven. She was also a woman who had already pushed up and around walls and boundaries her entire life and was eager to "do her bit" for the war effort in unconventional and exciting ways. 

Once they arrived overseas, they challenged assumptions and expanded their role beyond what the ARC or the military might have imagined. The Red Cross Girls served closer to the front lines overall than even the combat nurses. A history of the ARC WWII service published in 1945 notes: 

"They had a ringside seat at one of the greatest dramas of all time, moving with more freedom than many soldiers. Even war correspondents could not drive in and out of the battle lines as the Red Cross Girls did every day. In and out of the rain and mud they moved with the headlines, from hedgerow to plain, from orchard to orchard, and from bomb craters, shell holes, and crumbled towns. To the boom of artillery and the whistle of shells, they took their freshly made doughnuts and steaming coffee right to the GIs on highways, in hospitals, rest areas, gun sites, and even to the edge of foxholes." 

They thumbed their nose at danger and chafed at restrictions. The ARC definitely had not fully considered that their hiring profile was not the sort of woman who would accept anything less than independence and control over her own work and destiny. Just as any WWII veteran might tell you that his war service years were the most life-altering and memorable over his life, so too were the Red Cross Girls irrevocably changed by their war-time experiences. Many of these women left behind engaging, inspiring memoirs, and I have drawn on their experiences for my novels. One of my favorites was penned by an unknown Red Cross Girl in the form of a letter to one of her ARC instructors back in Washington. She wrote of her experiences in Normandy and Belgium in the winter of 1944 and noted that searing experiences near the battle lines had left their mark -- we're all "terribly calloused and never quite callous enough." 

"We went through Normandy like the Army went through -- fast and in the field. We spent Christmas morning diving into foxholes and serving doughnuts and coffee between alerts. . . . It's a great racket! Crawling out of the sack at seven and loading the trucks and taking off early to serve in the ruined, rubble-strewn, blasted towns and out among the snowbound gun emplacements. You wheel home, unload, race to chow, dress up and go out again. You smile and talk all day, give with the fast patter and jive around to canned music. Dance in the snow and mush and on ice, dance with the rain or sleet falling, dance in ruined old stables or in cellars or mess kitchens or on the Clubmobile among the coffee urns, doughnuts and people, or sometimes in a big hall with a good GI band. Red Cross hasn't done badly at all in picking personnel. Working here is being what you've been all your life, but disciplined and worn down smooth, so that you smile when you're dying."

She goes on to tell her former instructor that she recalls fondly how she and her classmates enjoyed their training in DC: "Strictly garrison we were. You should see us now."

Reading their memoirs and letters, looking at the photos from their wartime service, I am forever in awe of these amazing, trail-blazing women who served literally all over the globe with such distinction and courage. When I'm writing my novels, I always remind myself that they, like the men in uniform, didn't have a crystal ball. When they signed up, they didn't know how long they would be gone, where they would be sent, or whether they would return at all. Strong women all -- they are my heroines. 

You can read more about my Clubmobile Girls series on my website, on my Amazon page, and in my social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.