Last night on TV I watched "A Secret Garden" (the Hallmark Hall of
Fame special).  It was one of my favorite books when I was young,
and I got to thinking about why that was.  I realized it was largely
because the central character in the book was a girl.  And then I
got to thinking about the other books I had read, and TV shows I
had seen, and life in general, and I realized (for the nth time)
that I'm besieged with things about, by, for, and of men.  Most of
the books I read were about (and, of course, by) men, especially
the "classics".  And the music I heard was by men, and the art I
saw was by men (I only discovered Mary Cassatt last year, and I
was thrilled to realize there was a female Impressionist -- but
why didn't anyone tell me before?), and the TV shows were about
men.  Oh, sure there are women:  the love interest, the vamp, but
always secondary to the main story, which is about a man.  And the
stories that ARE about women are somehow "different" -- oh, no,
not inferior, but certainly they don't speak as well of the human
condition as a story about a man.

It wasn't all that long ago (high school?) that I realized that I
actually believed this, and always had.  And as soon as I realized
it I wondered why.  And as soon as I started wondering that (and
realizing that women were really neat, and the world didn't have
to be only about men) I found myself seeking art by women, music
by women, books and TV shows about and by women, and most of all,
the company of women.  Because every day I find myself surrounded
by men, and I have to keep reminding myself that it doesn't have
to be that way, that it SHOULDN'T be that way.  And it seems the
only way to even it out, to balance the influence of the male-dominated
culture against my need to feel that women are equally important,
is to actively spend time with women, and often alone with women,
to get away from all that maleness for just a while.

A few summers ago I worked at a medium-sized computer company.
There were about 10 technical women (including myself) in the
company (and about 75 technical men).  I asked one of them, "don't
the women here regularly get together for lunch or anything?"  She
replied, "Oh, we tried, but the men found out about it and got all
up in arms, so we had to cancel or invite them along."  How
infuriating!  Especially when you consider that MOST of the lunch
meetings at the company are all men simply because there aren't
enough women to go around!  But it terrified them, the thought that
the women might get together and do something, and enjoy themselves
WITHOUT THEM!  I decided that it was ridiculous to let the men push
the women around like that, to stop us from doing something we had
every right (and, I think, a real need) to do, and by the end of
the summer we had organized an all-female lunch, and it was great
to get to know (finally) all the women that worked there, and to
feel like part of a relatively large group of wonderful women,
instead of like an isolated woman in a huge group of men.  And I
will continue to demand the right to feel that way, no matter how
offended the men get!

Marie desJardins