Today I went to one of my favorite spots --- the dump. Or as it is called in modern parlance, The Multi- Material Recycling Center. I had a trunk full of broken down cardboard boxes which would go into the giant maw of a machine that would happily crunch them up into a mere shadow of their former selves. For some reason this is a very satisfying activity in which to participate. One at once feels virtuous because one is recycling, and can also satisfy the ten-year-old within by watching a huge machine crunch something into oblivion.
One of the nice men at the site called out to me to ask if I needed any help, addressing me in the process as ‘young lady.’ As he himself did not look much younger than I am, his engaging smile indicating only a few teeth left in a mouth surrounded by wrinkles, I was a little startled. Although why I should have been I do not know, as this is not the first time I have been addressed in that talking-to-children-and-old-people jocular tone of voice. Certainly I am not a young lady, although I hope on my best days I might aspire to be a lady. But as I thought about it, I tried to think about what I would like to be called. Certainly that nice man could have gotten himself in trouble calling out, “Hey, old lady” and I would not care to be called a ‘broad’ although parts of me may be. I really would not like to be addressed by the current rapper term for women, which used to be a word that was not uttered in polite society, but is now flung around with abandon. Ma’am is a possibility although I cannot say I would relish the title. It smacks of your strictest high school English teacher. And madam is out of reach as I do not own a tiara.
Then that evening I sat down with a wonderful documentary on the ninety-year struggle by women of this country to get the vote. I watched ranks of women in long restricting skirts marching down streets carrying banners, being dragged off to jail where they were force fed, and picketing in the cold, rain and snow at the gates of the White House. They were hatted, wrapped in long wool coats, their feet shod in lace up shoes. And under many of those hats the hair was gray, one protester jailed at 92. Yet they marched and marched and marched into history so that I and my daughters can now walk into a voting booth, and be a part of our democracy.
In 1920 when the constitutional amendment was finally passed by the Congress, and was ratified by the last state, Tennessee, there is a picture of Carrie Chapman Catt, the woman who had led this last long push for victory. In the photo she is gray-haired, stout, grandmotherly looking, and stands at the pinnacle of her victory with just a slight smile on her face, a very ordinary, unremarkable looking older woman who has just changed the world. It caused me to think again. Maybe I should be proud to simply be addressed by what I am --- old lady. After all, there are some old ladies who have moved mountains.