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Eve Evolved

Women, Not Just a Gender

By Natalie AyalaPublished 6 years ago 3 min read
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Ever since the first woman was created, we have been evolving through time. So much has changed for us since we took that first bite, and when I say we, I mean that as a whole I feel that women are all connected in a sort of sisterhood that has helped us through the years.

When I was born it was the late '60s the idea of women was not much different than that of the '50s. Although there was Woodstock and the burning of the bra and women's movements, the thoughts that men had about woman changed very little.

My mom would tell me when I was a small child with the world before me that you could never trust a man and to always depend on myself, which is kind of odd considering she married a lot. So even as a young child my perception of men was distorted but at the same time realistic in the male thinking of women—we were the weaker sex and needed men for everything.

As I grew older and time marched on the thought of boys and teenager rebellion came into play and I didn't think much about how men viewed women, but I did watch closely my mom's lifestyle and saw that men were both violent and absent in her life, which affected me when it came time to see my dad. The way women were treated in the '70s was starting to change. Women were accepted in society as a part of the working class but the pay was not at all close to a man's pay, but still we were evolving and becoming independent.

When I did see my dad on a Sunday we would always go over to my grandmother's house and there she would be, cooking in the kitchen as if a troop of soldiers was coming home from war. She would make everything by hand and the house smelled like garlic and sauce—it gave me a sense of warmth and security. Did I feel like that was the way life should be lived? I am not sure, but it did feel right to me and I always loved going to my grandmother's house.

I watched how my mother's life and my dad's life unfolded as I grew into a woman and soon as a mother and grandmother and as I look back these days, I am certain that as much as women have evolved from barefoot and pregnant to voting rights and the workplace, I still feel like the best of both worlds would be to come home to a house that smelled like garlic and sauce and still have my independence.

It is very hard to have everything in this life as a woman, but if you do not even try to go after what you want you will be empowering men to fall back into that old age thinking that we cannot do anything we set our minds to, that we are the weaker sex, and that, ladies, is far from the truth! So whenever you think you can’t do it, just remember as a 51-year-old grandmother of four, I went back to school and received my BS and am now embarking on achieving my Master’s in Legal Studies, so if I can do it any woman out there can achieve anything. Now get out there and keep evolving and always remember where we came from and always keep reaching for your dreams.

The best is yet to come no matter how bad or good your upbringing was. We have to be a survivor of our past and not a victim of it!

feminism
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