not pretty; just true

Of course, I'm not talking about Blogsisters, whose birthday is coming up -- as CEO Jeneane notes in the previous post. BS has been her personal labor of love from the getgo, when she brought me in to help get it all rolling. I'm not around here much these days (life as a caregiver doesn't leave much time for fun), but I'm glad I popped over today to tell Jeneane "you're still doin' good, girl."

Meanwhile (and the rest of the following is over here):

They weren't pretty -- not by the standards of our American culture today. And what they held up for us to see in the mirror of truth wasn't pretty either.

Betty Friedan, the feminist icon of my times, died yesterday at the age of 85. This is my favorite Friedan quote, given in an interview with LIfe magazine in 1963:

Some people think I'm saying, 'Women of the world unite -- you have nothing to lose but your men." It's not true. You have nothing to lose but your vacuum cleaners.

Sojourner Truth, much of whose life was lived not too far from where I am now, is featured in my local newspaper today. The piece ends with the following:

'Ain't I A Woman?'

Sojourner Truth gave this speech in 1851 at a women's convention in Akron, Ohio.

"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?

I look around me for the Betty Friedans and Sojourner Truths of this generation, yet all I see are Hillary Clintons.

(continued at kalilily.net)