P.S. A woman's place is wherever she can be a Woman in every sense - including being polite.
For decades women were held back - not allowed the right to own land - not allowed the right to vote, or even hold certain positions in the work force. THAT was oppression.
My Grandma told me a story about the first time Grandpa sent her to town to purchase her own car -- WHOA!!
Luella Ruth Bush was not like me - she knew how to control her tongue, she would maybe give you a "WELL! I don't much like YOU!" Look but I don't remember her ever cutting down someone with her tongue in public. It took me a while to learn that virtue.
As the story goes, she traveled all over one town, looked everything over and made her decision. Upon talking with the company owners they told her "When you're sure what you want, bring Johnny back to town with you and we will make a deal."
Where I grew up everyone knows everyone - and all of these families are Good people. Also, to be fair, at that time, it was highly possible that the owner was only concerned about Grandpa being very upset with them if they did this without hearing from him first instead of thinking she wasn't capable. Regardless, yes - it's nice that we have moved beyond that.
By-the-way, my Grandma got her tail feathers all fanned out and drove herself to a different town and BOUGHT herself a car! But she was always pleasant to the first company until the day she died.
Now that you're half-way through this post I should warn you this is my "rant". I am so ashamed of my gender every time I happen upon the situation of a man holding the door open for a woman and he is met with a glare, or she pulls up short and either refuses to walk through, or most awful, gives him a tongue lashing like you've never heard.
This is NOT women's lib - please excuse me because I really don't use curse words very often, because I choose to use my vocabulary words to express myself. However in this situation?! This is not women's lib - this is nothing more than you being a bitch.
You will probably not meet any woman more confident and more capable of opening a door for herself than my girls and myself. But when a man holds a door open for me he will always get a smile, eye contact, and a thank you. Why? Because he is Not being Chauvinistic - he is committing an act of kindness! He doesn't have to leave his group to wait for me but he does, and when all of my girls are together I have seen young men blush by the time all 5 of my girls pass before me and EACH of them says "thank you!" Each with their own expression. When I get there and he begins to be uncomfortable I will follow up with "thank you for knowing how to be nice to a lady ... Even if it is 6 of us at once!" Usually I get a grin and nervous chuckle and he is relieved to run off to his buddies. Adult men are usually confident enough to grin widely and throw a sarcastic quip my way.
Was I disrespected? Belittled? Made fun of? NO! What just happened was that I know there are Mama's out there doing their job and teaching their young men to commit acts of kindness and put others before themselves because all lives are valuable and reaching out with acts of kindness are just plain basic good manners! On the flip side of that each of my girls will say thank you and not assume her sister's thank you is enough because he committed 6 acts of kindness and he deserves 6 acknowledgements for it. My Mom taught me kindness and my girls have learned it as well.
The hardest time I ever had was while on an anniversary trip with my husband to Washington D.C. We hopped on a city bus that was packed. In front of me was a couple seated. He had on his Navy hat from WW II and time had taken its toll on his body. He was about 130 lbs and shaky with age. He took one look at me and rose to his feet and offered me his seat, I began to protest but looked in his eyes and he had picked Me to sacrifice for, not just today but for his entire life. I swallowed the lump in my throat and with tears in my eyes and a smile on my face I thanked him, and sat beside his beautiful wife who was smiling with pride. My husband stood behind him to steady him and reach out to grab him when the bus jerked back and forth in travel. It was the hardest thing for me to ever do was to sit there and watch his struggle. I looked around that bus at all of the able bodied young adults who pretended not to see his struggle because THEY didn't want to commit the same act of kindness, and my tears of gratitude turned to tears of sadness.
We can spout all of the self-righteous women's lib rhetoric we want to ladies, but we helped to cause this atmosphere. With all of our insistence of equal rights, and acting out upon that impulsively with more emotion that thought, we have fostered and even taught by our actions to this next generation that we do not respect acts of kindness.
We are better than this ladies!! We should know how to say thank you when someone treats us well! Shame on us if we don't - and woe to our country if we don't pass it on!
Purpose to make a difference and be grateful for acts of kindness and do not berate gentlemen for being Kind! All you're doing is showing folks you are unable to be kind in return.
Have a fantastic day and be kind to one another!
Blessings for today ya'll - we need it every day!
Heather
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