In the late 1970's in Kenosha, Wisconsin where I grew up there was no revolution, televised or otherwise. The F word, for us, didn't exist. But I did know that the sexual double standard was bullshit and summarily ignored it. My girlfriends and I wanted big hair, lots of make-up, high heels, drugs, rock and roll, and cute men French kissing us and fucking us.We hung out at a nightclub owned by the infamous Sammy G and he would squire us about town like P. Diddy with a gaggle of ho's. We knew what people thought of us, but we didn't care. Some of us wore our pants so tight, our slits showed, our tits hung out, and some of us passed out on the dance floor. Oh the horror, the horror. But, shit I had fun.
I also ignored the iron clad rule that boys didn't like smart girls. Or at least girls that were smarter than them. To hell with that. I read lots of books, saw lots of movies, and educated myself. I read Babi Yar, The Bell Jar, Ariel, Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, Manchild in the Promised Land and a host of others.
I was a proto-teenaged feminist and I lived to tell the tale. Photo courtesy of Feminist Lawyers.
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No wonder I like you! And I don't mean just because you're from Wisconsin.
ReplyDeleteOh are you from Wisconsin 2?
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm a hoosier, but a fellow midwesterner transplanted somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteI spent 15 years in Chicago and many summers in the Northwoods.
Chicago is great city, have visited it many times, particularly when I lived in Wisconsin, Kenosha was the last stop on Metro North, thank God. So I got to get a taste of a big city at a young age. Love the Art Institute on Michigan.
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