More interviews!
Jun. 10th, 2003 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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mamawrites
1. what made you become a feminist?
This one I had to think about for a while, and I'm not sure there's any one answer. To start with, there's was minimal (that I remember, anyway) real gender role stereotyping in my family growing up. I mean, when it was dress-up time, my sister and I usually wore dresses, but we did as much yard work and snow shovelling as we did doing "women's work" chores, and my brothers were the same way. We played sports, we were expected to excel in all our school subjects, and we never got the "girls can't do that" crud either. So I would say I had a good practical basis anyway. In high school, I think two things happened: I read Susan Faludi's Backlash, which opened my eyes, so I started looking around. Going to a conservative Catholic school gave me plenty to get incensed about once I started looking. Given my naturally rebellious nature as a teenager, embracing feminism seemed to serve a dual purpose - I was improving myself and the lot of other women, and I was finding a way to define myself as different from everyone else.
2. what's your favorite memory from when you were dating Wiley?
Probably our first Valentine's day. We were freshman in college, and neither of us had a lot of money. That didn't stop me from feeling all sorry for myself while walking accross campus watching other chicas cavorting around with their flowers and presents and dinner plans. I'd worked myself into quite a state of self pity when I got back to the dorm room we were unoffiially sharing, and there was a big bouquet of flowers and a wonderful love letter all about how he was sorry that we couldn't do anything fancy, but that he loved me, you get the picture. Such a silly little thing, but it meant so much. And if one that's once we were living together but not married counts, my birthday in 1996 - we'd just moved to Boston, and I'd started a new job the day before. I only knew one guy there, and he didn't work on my birthday, so it was a day of no one knowing it was my birthday. I took the train home, and halfway home from the station, the skies opend up, so I got completely soaked walking home to boot. Wiley hadn't mentioned my birthday, o I was convinced he'd forgotten too. Again, cue the sad self pity. I'm sitting in the living room, in my bathrobe and my doorbell rings. I go downstairs to answer it, and there's no one there, but it rings again (I'm looking out through the little window, being in my bathrobe and all). I open the door, and there's a little red gerbera daisy plant in a pot, and a bag full of Chinese takeout, and a Wiley hiding around the corner. It's the little things, you know?
3. do you daydream about retirement? when and where would you like to retire?
I try hard not to think to much about retirement - it seems so far off, and preparing for it seems such a daunting task. It's bad of me, I know.
4. what do you consider your most significant accomplishment in the last 5 years?
It sounds stupid t say this, but I don't feel like I've accomplished very much. Most of the things I've done haven't involved the deciding I want to do something and then getting it done through to the end schema that I usually need to consider something an accomplishment - so having Widget, or buying a house don't feel like accomplishments. I mean, keeping my cool so as to not lose my job is something, but still not quite right. I guess along those lines, I'd have to take the 55 pounds I managed to lose on WW over the past year.
5. if you could change one thing to make the world a better place, what would you do?
I'd find a way to end poverty, ensuring that everyone had a way to get enough money to meet their necessities of food, clothing, clean water and adequate shelter. Hopefully, that would solve issues of hunger and homelessness (or go a long way towards solving them), as well as removing some of the impetus behind class and race based hatred.
These are fromsolcita
1. What is your favorite piece of self-completed craftiness (i.e., cross-stitching, knitting, crocheting, etc)?
I think it's the small sampler I made for Miss Dory one Christmas - it was the first Hardanger piece I ever tried (which was scary) and it came out beauifully, and made her happy.
2. What are your hopes for Widget in the future?
Honestly, it sounds trite, but I just want her to be happy - the only caveat to that is that I want her to be able to support herself, in whatever manner and to whatever means she chooses. If she's happy as something unlucratie like acting, or as a housewife, or as a career woman earning a fortune, I'll be happy. Oh, so long as she get whatever success she builds without stepping on the backs of other people to do it as well.
3. Do you want any more children?
Tough call, and I vacillate on it. Part of me does, because I'd like to see how the experience is different the second time around, and because part of me really DOES want Widget to have a brother or sister. But at the same time, I want to back to grad school, and doing it after I finish is a LONG way away (and I'm a firm believer in having childbearing done by age 31 or 32), and having a baby was so physically, mentally and emotional grueling that I'm not sure I want to subject myself to that again. I'm still recovering.
4. What is the first fanciful thing you would do if you won the lottery? (meaning after paying off bills and other mundanities)
I'd buy Wiley whatever motorcycle he wanted, no matter HOW stupidly expensive. Then I'd buy a 1961 Corvette for meeee.
5. Do you wear perfume? If so, what is your favorite scent?
Generally only on dress up occasions. Then, I wear Givency Organza Indecence.
mamawrites1. what made you become a feminist?
This one I had to think about for a while, and I'm not sure there's any one answer. To start with, there's was minimal (that I remember, anyway) real gender role stereotyping in my family growing up. I mean, when it was dress-up time, my sister and I usually wore dresses, but we did as much yard work and snow shovelling as we did doing "women's work" chores, and my brothers were the same way. We played sports, we were expected to excel in all our school subjects, and we never got the "girls can't do that" crud either. So I would say I had a good practical basis anyway. In high school, I think two things happened: I read Susan Faludi's Backlash, which opened my eyes, so I started looking around. Going to a conservative Catholic school gave me plenty to get incensed about once I started looking. Given my naturally rebellious nature as a teenager, embracing feminism seemed to serve a dual purpose - I was improving myself and the lot of other women, and I was finding a way to define myself as different from everyone else.
2. what's your favorite memory from when you were dating Wiley?
Probably our first Valentine's day. We were freshman in college, and neither of us had a lot of money. That didn't stop me from feeling all sorry for myself while walking accross campus watching other chicas cavorting around with their flowers and presents and dinner plans. I'd worked myself into quite a state of self pity when I got back to the dorm room we were unoffiially sharing, and there was a big bouquet of flowers and a wonderful love letter all about how he was sorry that we couldn't do anything fancy, but that he loved me, you get the picture. Such a silly little thing, but it meant so much. And if one that's once we were living together but not married counts, my birthday in 1996 - we'd just moved to Boston, and I'd started a new job the day before. I only knew one guy there, and he didn't work on my birthday, so it was a day of no one knowing it was my birthday. I took the train home, and halfway home from the station, the skies opend up, so I got completely soaked walking home to boot. Wiley hadn't mentioned my birthday, o I was convinced he'd forgotten too. Again, cue the sad self pity. I'm sitting in the living room, in my bathrobe and my doorbell rings. I go downstairs to answer it, and there's no one there, but it rings again (I'm looking out through the little window, being in my bathrobe and all). I open the door, and there's a little red gerbera daisy plant in a pot, and a bag full of Chinese takeout, and a Wiley hiding around the corner. It's the little things, you know?
3. do you daydream about retirement? when and where would you like to retire?
I try hard not to think to much about retirement - it seems so far off, and preparing for it seems such a daunting task. It's bad of me, I know.
4. what do you consider your most significant accomplishment in the last 5 years?
It sounds stupid t say this, but I don't feel like I've accomplished very much. Most of the things I've done haven't involved the deciding I want to do something and then getting it done through to the end schema that I usually need to consider something an accomplishment - so having Widget, or buying a house don't feel like accomplishments. I mean, keeping my cool so as to not lose my job is something, but still not quite right. I guess along those lines, I'd have to take the 55 pounds I managed to lose on WW over the past year.
5. if you could change one thing to make the world a better place, what would you do?
I'd find a way to end poverty, ensuring that everyone had a way to get enough money to meet their necessities of food, clothing, clean water and adequate shelter. Hopefully, that would solve issues of hunger and homelessness (or go a long way towards solving them), as well as removing some of the impetus behind class and race based hatred.
These are from
solcita1. What is your favorite piece of self-completed craftiness (i.e., cross-stitching, knitting, crocheting, etc)?
I think it's the small sampler I made for Miss Dory one Christmas - it was the first Hardanger piece I ever tried (which was scary) and it came out beauifully, and made her happy.
2. What are your hopes for Widget in the future?
Honestly, it sounds trite, but I just want her to be happy - the only caveat to that is that I want her to be able to support herself, in whatever manner and to whatever means she chooses. If she's happy as something unlucratie like acting, or as a housewife, or as a career woman earning a fortune, I'll be happy. Oh, so long as she get whatever success she builds without stepping on the backs of other people to do it as well.
3. Do you want any more children?
Tough call, and I vacillate on it. Part of me does, because I'd like to see how the experience is different the second time around, and because part of me really DOES want Widget to have a brother or sister. But at the same time, I want to back to grad school, and doing it after I finish is a LONG way away (and I'm a firm believer in having childbearing done by age 31 or 32), and having a baby was so physically, mentally and emotional grueling that I'm not sure I want to subject myself to that again. I'm still recovering.
4. What is the first fanciful thing you would do if you won the lottery? (meaning after paying off bills and other mundanities)
I'd buy Wiley whatever motorcycle he wanted, no matter HOW stupidly expensive. Then I'd buy a 1961 Corvette for meeee.
5. Do you wear perfume? If so, what is your favorite scent?
Generally only on dress up occasions. Then, I wear Givency Organza Indecence.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
wow, Wiley sounds like quite a catch!
Date: 2003-06-11 03:02 am (UTC)I became a feminist in much the same way, I think (except that I don't have any brothers). I didn't go to a Catholic school, but my parents were raised Catholic at asked me to attend confirmation classes when I was 14... I did a lot of thinking about women's roles that year, and decided not to be confirmed.
What kind of grad school will you go back to?
Re: wow, Wiley sounds like quite a catch!
Date: 2003-06-16 07:01 pm (UTC)