'Ms. offered suggestions on how to raise my consciousness and not just my hemline. The hell with being tamed.'
Despite growing up in the age of Mad Men, as a child, I was more like Don Draper than his wife Betty. At 16, it was in the pages ofThe roots of my feminism were improbably seeded early. While neighborhood girls invited me to play house with their dainty melamine toy tea sets, I much preferred to play alone, fancying myself a struggling artist holed up in a cold-water flat in Paris reeking of linseed oil and turpentine.
The portrayal of women I saw on television, schoolbooks and in my mother’s magazines were all singularly white, living out the Lady Clairol world of carpools, cookouts, cream of mushroom soup casseroles, and catering to contented children and happy-go-lucky husbands. This held little appeal for me, as did my own mother’s life as a happy homemaker who just never seemed all that happy.
By second grade, Pierre had receded and I had moved into the corporate world. Among several imaginary enterprises I had created, I ran my own advertising agency, where I was the account executive, head copywriter and art director rolled into one. However, a few years later, playing traditional house was not optional. When I entered junior high in 1968, I was required to take home economics, a class I ended up hating nearly as much as gym. Although the burgeoning women’s liberation movement had begun calling into question the role of women, this antiquated class was nothing short of basic training for being a successful wife and homemaker. But when it came to stitching and stirring, I was a flop.
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