The Woman Who Walked Away, Part Two.
By the late 1960"s, Bobbie stern was part and parcel of Vancouver's booming counterculture. She dressed in sloppy jeans and raggedy sweaters. She had used LSD quite a few times and smoked hashish and marijuana when she felt like it. She also used the pill as she slept with quite a few men. She also took part in anti-Vietnam War marches.
Yet after awhile she got tired of the hippies. She needed something more than taking drugs and going to be-ins. She also got tired of being referred to as some man's 'chick'. Plus she found that some of the hippies were disturbed people. "We believe in peace and love," many hippies declared. Yet a few of the men that Bobbie met in the counterculture were violent. Hell's Angels really frightened her and some of them often showed up at hippie events.
She started to move on again. She wasn't following her aunt Frieda's advice. about staying put. One weekend afternoon she wandered into a downtown hall and heard Dave Barrett, the new leader of the B.C. New Democrats give a speech. "Work in the N.D.P," Barrett urged the mostly young crowd that had its share of hecklers. "Help us build a new British Columbia that's more just, more peaceful and more full of love." Bobbie liked Barrett's message and ended up working for free in a Vancouver N.D.P. office.
Yet the work she did was just like the work she did in the outside world namely, typing, filing, answering the phones and putting stamps on envelopes.
"This is shit work," a tall blonde woman called Monica told her one day in the N.D.P. office. "We should be doing something else like the men d. For instance we should be politicians too." Bobbie listened and agreed. Soon she and Monica became friends. Monica turned Bobbie on to feminist books like Betty Friedan's 'The Feminine Mystique' and 'The Descent of Women' by Elaine Morgan.
For the next three years, Bobbie, Monica and a few other women, mostly below the age of 30 formed a consciousness raising group. They denounced patriarchy, or rule by men of women. They organized marches in favour of abortion and crashed a fashion show where they threw tomatoes at ultra thin models paraded in gleaming dresses. They also hurled insults at the male fashion designers..
By now it was the 1970's. Bobbie went back to school, to a community college to study political science. Now she remembered her liking of social science and she was ready to learn more about politics and history. Her new boyfriend William was studying to be a lawyer and he helped Bobbie sometimes with her courses. Still, Bobbie was restless again. She wanted to move on. The feminists groups she belonged to, were now boring her. One incident played a major role in her evolution.
She went down to Seattle to hear Betty Friedan give a speech at the local university. Up to this point, Bobbie admired Friedan. Yet Friedan, a short powerful speaker spent part of the time denouncing lesbians. "I will not let lesbians take over the feminist movement," Friedan said. "Feminism must be a mainstream American movement and not a lesbian one."
Bobbie was shocked at this part of the speech because she knew that lesbians had been the main organizers of the meeting.
No comments:
Post a Comment