Being Eve.

As a child I was taught about how God created Paradise, then Adam and Eve and then the rest of world, plus the story about the rib. I was also taught that the price for living in the Garden of Eden was to not eat the apple. Even as a child I thought this was the dumbest story I had ever heard. Little did I know that this story would haunt me my entire life. As a female baby, toddler, little girl, teenager and young woman all I’ve ever heard is about what “girls should and should not do. Should or should not be. ” I was informed early in life that my father was disappointed that I wasn’t a boy. I had no idea what that meant or why he had this wish. The influence of the dogma that being male is better was so strong in my world and my psyche that I set out to do all the things men do in order to figure out why they are better. Why are they more?

As I grew into a pretty woman who embraced knowledge and fashion with equal lust I was confronted with the male population’s desire to manhandle me and a workplace that would also prefer I was male. Bitterness is not one of my character traits so I worked harder, better than the men around me. My career choices always placed me in areas of business where performance was measurable, never subjected to outside interpretation. So began my measurable performance and hard core, bare knuckled ambition. Work, money and power were and still are the engine that drives me.

As I turned my head to see the world outside my little circle I found women with children the poorest demographic in the USA. Child abuse rampant. Women being murdered by husbands and partners. Hunger. Homelessness. Slave wages. Who can live on $6.00/ taxable per hour. Even the celebrated $15 at Amazon are pennies in today’s marketplace. While I was busy with my 70 hour workload the world had been a fist in all of women’s faces smashing at them nonstop. ” There are laws”, I told myself. “I must do something,” I told myself. So during Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Presidential Campaign I joined her army of woman seeking to get her elected President of the United States. My first shock was how at the height of her campaign women were constantly lamenting that Obama could not remain in office another eight years. This went on endlessly. When I asked if this commentary was a wise thing to do, I was told it was a joke and dismissed as if nothing was happening. When the coup d’etat took place and I called it out in horror thousands of women told me to move on. So I carried my own President Clinton campaign is spite of daily insults. When Donald Trump and his cadre of thieves started showing their fangs, all of a sudden, the sleepers awakened and so started the “Hillary was right about everything” movement.

During the short period that Hillary expressed that she ” would still like to be President” during the 2020 campaign, the haters again showed their ugly faces like a battalion seeking blood. She put the thought to rest and so we came to the present Presidential battleground meant to eradicate fascism and save our beloved Republic. Three formidable women candidates took to the campaign trail and it was glorious. Little by little I read thousands of posts and comments, orchestrated to critique and undermine these fabulous women candidates. Each one started to fade away until all that was left were two 80 year old men looking to win the nomination for their party.

My learning curve has moved significantly upward. I walk away a more knowledgeable, secure and happy person than when I walked into this project. What I have learned, first hand, is irreplaceable. For example, There is no feminist movement. If there were one we would have control since, yes, we are the majority. Men aren’t depriving women of one single thing. Women are depriving themselves. You want change, you get change. If you say you want change because it makes you sound and look cool but act in the opposite direction you are a fake persona, living behind a mask. Of course, there are exceptions but there aren’t enough of us to break the glass ceiling, bury the Eve curse and enjoy the damn Apple.