Modern Woman

Ashford University COM360: Advanced Communications in Society Final Paper

Modern Woman

            In 2007, an American Idol veteran, Bucky Covington, released a song to the world entitled, “A Different World.” The song’s refrain states, “It was a different life when we were boys and girls. Not just a different time, it was a different world” (Covington, 2007). The lyrics of this song, which depict a time when life was “harder but simpler” than today, came to mind in an interview with Leanne McCormick (Personal communication, October 17, 2010). Until this interview, I had never really considered her a different culture than my own.

            She is white and of European decent. She is of Irish and German heritage and today practices some customs of both her Irish and German ancestors. She was born in 1958 and raised through the turmoil of the 60’s and 70’s. A farmer’s daughter from rural Pennsylvania, she spent much of her childhood doing chores and playing with the neighbor children. She has told me stories of her childhood, how things were while she was growing up, and I have always been fascinated. She has helped me in more ways than I can ever hope to pay back, and continues to show me love, respect, and nurture on a regular basis. My son and I would be lost without her. She is my mother.

            Her earliest memory is that she had the mumps in 1961. According to the National Network for Immunization Information, the mumps vaccine that I received as a child was not approved by the FDA until 1967 (http://www.immunizationinfo.org/vaccines/mumps). Leanne’s memory involves lying at the bottom of her bed watching television. She mentioned a show called Sing Along With Mitch, an NBC musical variety show staring producer Mitch Miller and a variety of choruses. Innovative for its time, Sing Along With Mitch ran the lyrics of the songs across the bottom of the screen so that the viewing audience could “sing along” (McLellan, 2010).

            A line from the aforementioned Bucky Covington song adds, “All we had were friends, and they were outside, playin’ outside” (Covington, 2007). Indeed, Leanne’s typical day as a child was spent playing with her best friend, Julie McCloughan. “Her family built a house on the hill above ours when we were two. I don’t remember meeting her. I just remember she was always there,” states Leanne (Personal communication, October 17, 2010). On more than one occasion, she told me how the two of them were never apart. Even at school, where they were seated alphabetically by last name, there was no one between McCloughan and McCormick. I have tried to remember a time in my childhood that I spent playing outside with a close friend. I cannot. My friends and I spent our time watching television and playing computer games.

            Leanne speaks of a strong faith, though she recalls she did not regularly attend church because, “we were a farming community and everyone worked the farms on Sunday – there was no day of rest.” Families spent evenings together over a home cooked meal. Going out to eat was unusual, and take-out nearly unheard of. As unemployment steadily climbs today, she also recalls a time when, “there were more people working than not.” With the strong community ties, “times were safer,” she remarks. “Children were able to walk everywhere and parents didn’t have to worry about where they were or what might happen” (Personal communication, October 17, 2010).

            Geographically, things were “smaller” in Leanne’s childhood. “Everyone knew everyone else. If someone’s name was in the paper, chances were everyone knew who it was.” Today, people from the small farming community of Danville, Pennsylvania drive to Harrisburg (the state capitol) daily. In Leanne’s time, it was rare that anyone from the area would travel to the capitol. “It took hours. Not really, but it felt that way” (Personal communication, October 17, 2010). Perhaps the smallness of the close-knit community created a sense of trust that cannot exist today. That is why families then could allow their children out of doors unattended, and families now have to watch their own backyards carefully.

            The government of the day was “supported and revered. There [were] no mud-slinging campaigns [like today].” The economy boomed. As she mentioned before, “more people had jobs.” She added, “I remember gas at 25¢ a gallon.” At 16, she got her first real job. As an illustration of the state of the economy, “I started at $1.80 an hour… I got a raise to $1.90 within 6 months and my father said, ‘Pretty good money for a young, snot-nose kid.’” (Personal communication, October 17, 2010). Minimum wage in 1974 for non-farm, non-government employees was $1.90 (Wage and Hour Division, 2009). In those days, apparently, children were expected to make less than minimum wage at after-school jobs.

            Education of Leanne’s day was less pressure than today. She mentioned how children of today begin learning how to use computers in preschool, whereas she never had computers in school at all. She seemed disgusted with today’s education system. “When I went to 1^st grade, I learned to print my name… They expect kids to know all the things when entering Kindergarten that I learned in 1^st grade!” (Personal communication, October 17, 2010).

            The fashions and games that decorated Leanne’s life as a child are still around today. “I lived in the 60’s – Hippies and Flower children – short shorts and mini skirts – bell bottoms and water buffalo sandals, all which have come back [under] different names.” Games were either physically active, such as tag and jump rope, or mentally stimulating, such as Monopoly™ and Chinese checkers. “Now it’s all video games, PlayStation and Wii.” Baseball was not considered a “sport” to be won; it was simply a game.

            After a raucous round of history and life in the 1960’s and 1970’s, it was time to delve into the meat of my questioning. Leanne is, after all, a woman, and I know from all of my studies that things were different for women in her time. She listed some jobs that women were able and expected to do. “Nurses or teachers, hairdressers or waitresses. There were no women in construction. Women were secretaries, not executives. We studied bookkeeping and shorthand, not chemistry and calculus, or we didn’t study anything or work anywhere. We cooked, cleaned, had babies, changed diapers” (Personal communication, October 17, 2010).

That kind of life is not for this farmer’s granddaughter. I am glad I live in a world where women can be whatever they want to be. I owe my freedom, of course, to pioneering women of the past, who worked to give women rights and choices. Ladies like Diana Lee, an Asian-American chemical engineer for Standard Oil in 1975 have paved the way for young women to get into better-paying jobs. Maybel Howard, an African-American who, as of 1975, was a jack-of-all-trades and taught wood shop at Berkley, CA, high school (Two women..., 1975).

Leanne laments, “I wanted to become a doctor and go into cardiac research because of the heart disease in my family” (Personal communication, October 17, 2010). She did not become a doctor. That was a man’s job, regardless of the work of Elizabeth Blackwell a hundred and twenty years before. The male-dominated society was not confined to small-town Pennsylvania. Children all over the country were being taught that men were good, kindly heroes, and women were either evil or airheads (Sinott, 1970). “Instead,” Leanne adds, “I became a nurse and worked in the field for 25 years, then went back to school to study business” (Personal communication, October 17, 2010). I was an adult when she returned to school and was able, and even encouraged, to study business.

Still today, stereotypes run rampant in this small town. Certain types are poor, certain types are fat, and no one likes either. Farmers in the 1960’s and 1970’s were considered poor and dirty. While Leanne’s family was neither, they were farmers. “My mother always said, ‘There’s no shame in being poor but there’s no excuse for being dirty.’ But there was shame in being poor. If you received public assistance, it was whispered about.” Leanne’s father worked three jobs so that, in a rough spot, he did not have to resort to public assistance for his family. “He did everything he had to.” That is how they dealt with the farmer stereotype. Leanne, and her children after her, suffered the cruelty of being a heavy child. “Nobody likes the fat kid” (Personal communication, October 17, 2010).

Judith Moore, 2006, wrote an astounding autobiography entitled Fat Girl. She died not long after it was published. “Everybody fat has her own fat story,” says Moore (p. 7). Leanne’s fat story is of anorexia, starving her body until it became thin enough for approval. In those days, though, the size she shrunk down to is large in today’s sizes. “When Jessica Simpson gained weight, they printed headlines that she ‘ballooned’ to a size 8. It made me weep for young girls today” (Personal communication, October 17, 2010). When I was a child, she used to tell me not to be upset by it, that kids were just cruel. I have concluded that cruel children are raised by cruel adults, and then become cruel adults themselves, thus perpetuation the vicious cycle of cruelty. I dislike playing the victim, but more so I dislike being the victim.

Rather than dwell on the misery stereotypes caused, I steered our conversation toward the media. “If it was on the news, it was true,” Leanne insisted (Personal communication, October 17, 2010). The news was the only way for rural Pennsylvania to keep up with what was going on in the world.

Casualties from Vietnam abounded. Names ran across the bottom of the screen at 7am, noon, 6pm, and 10pm daily. Leanne remarks, “Now you can watch news 24 hours a day if you want to… I didn’t become too affected by news. I thought it was boring. I was into books and music, rock and roll. I was all for Women’s rights, Negro rights, anything to get to my father. I always made him laugh” (Personal communication, October 17, 2010).

Big news stories of Leanne’s childhood included stories of the Vietnam War, the Manson family, the Hell’s Angels, and race riots in other states. “All of it was millions of miles away. Nothing could touch my safe, secure world. I went to the movies with a friend one Sunday, and they made an announcement that Hell’s Angels were coming to town. No one could leave the theater if they did. They never came” (Personal communication, October 17, 2010).

While she may have been slightly oppressed, Leanne’s “small world” protected her from being an aspect of the newsworthy stories of the day. According to Jandt (2010), a third of women in the United States have been victims of sexual abuse (p. 240). Unlike the vast majority of the country, she was taught to value time not by how much can be done in a certain amount, but by how much is spent with the family (Jandt, 2010, p. 198). Change, even with all the good it has brought, was not necessarily good. She was raised to believe that some things should change; others should not (Jandt, 2010, p. 199).

With such a small worldview, it is natural enough to consider one’s parents a dominant culture. Leanne complains her father was strict and overprotective. My own memories of the man are of wide blue eyes and a big smile. I suppose people tend to treat their grandchildren differently than they treated their children. Still, it can leave a lasting impression. With such overbearing at home, she developed a communication barrier between herself and people in positions of authority. “[They] can cause barriers in communication through intimidation,” (Personal communication, October 17, 2010). Even now, nearly twenty years after her father’s untimely death, Leanne is still intimidated by people in higher places, though not as much as she once was.

Today, Leanne is proud to say she is a modern woman. She controls her own life. Her own choices affect the paths her life follows. As a young woman, she never wanted to be the strong, independent woman she is today. She was not given a choice. “I married someone who couldn’t, wouldn’t, and didn’t support his family. For most of my adult life, I was the sole breadwinner, working two and three jobs, 80-100 hours a week, while my mother and in-laws raised my children” (Personal communication, October 17, 2010).

After a lifetime of living for other people, she is finally able to work just one day a week, just so she has that time to get away from the house. She spends the rest of her time caring for her elderly mother and helping with her four young grandchildren. She tries to teach them to work hard for what they want, that life is tough, and that not all people are good. “Trust is not as much a part of culture as it used to be,” she says. “In today’s world, there isn’t the respect of others that there used to be, but I like to believe that my grandchildren are the generation to bring it all back” (L. McCormick, Personal communication, October 17, 2010). That is a distinct possibility.

Children today study respect for others and their property. There are anti-bully programs in the curriculum that were not there when even I was in school. They are a completely new culture developing. It will be different from the culture in which Leanne was raised, and different from the culture in which I was raised. I hope, however, as I am sure Leanne’s generation did, that based on the culture we are instilling in our children today, they will build a better world tomorrow.

References

Covington, B. (2007) A different world. On Bucky Covington [CD]. Nashville:

Lyric Street

.

Jandt, F.E. (2010). An introduction to intercultural communication: Identities in a global community (6^th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

McLellan, D. (2010, August 2). Mitch Miller dies at 99; musical innovator and host of “Sing Along With Mitch” Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 18, 2010 from http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-mitch-miller-20100803,0,5868486,full.story

Moore, J. (2006) Fat Girl. New York: Plume.

Sinott, J.  (1970, June). Zap! bam! pow! chauvinist children's culture. Off Our Backs, 1(7), 12.  Retrieved October 4, 2010, from Research Library.

Two women making it in 'men's' jobs. (1975, August 27). Oakland Post (1968-1981),p. 6.  Retrieved October 4, 2010, from ProQuest Central.

Wage and Hour Division (2009) History of Federal minimum wage rates under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938-2009. Retrieved October 18, 2010, from U.S. Department of Labor website: http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm