Coming from Pagan Writers Press on March 8, 2013!
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Monday, March 25, 2013
Danielle Villano On "A Woman's Place"
Imagine if
I lived a few decades ago. My creative
writing degree would be laughable; why, a creative writing program would have
been a distant dream!
“You must
go to school to learn a useful trade,” I would have been scolded.
To take it
even further: “A young woman shouldn’t be pursuing a college education. She should know her place.”
What I’m
trying to say here is this: As a young woman of the present day, I often take
for granted the opportunities that have been given to me, and the successes I
have worked for. Now, as I sit at my 9
to 5 job, I try to imagine a world where I may not have even been given the
opportunity to sit at a desk.
I wanted to
examine a period in history where some inspiring women chose to fight against
their role as a strictly domestic figure.
Not only were these women tending to children and maintaining a
household – they were also carving a small space for themselves in the working
world. As my (unnamed) narrator tells
her beautician: “Maybe you don’t need a man.
Maybe that idea is outdated, and maybe what you need is there, circled
in the classifieds section.”
Just as my
narrator hopes to set a good example for her daughter, my own parents worked
hard to set a good example for me. They
worked hard to give me the lifestyle and education I have been so fortunate to
have, and I want to do great things with this opportunity.
***
Danielle Villano is a New Jersey native. Her writing has found its way to Italics Mine, Storychord, FortyOunceBachelors, Scissors and Spackle, Marco Polo, and Milk Sugar. Danielle is the recipient of the 2012 Ginny Wray Senior Prize in Fiction from SUNY Purchase.
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Congratulations and great insights:)
ReplyDeleteWhen I was headed to college in 1966 one of my father's cousins asked my mother why they were wasting the money. I'd only get married before I graduated. We were all insulted. Needless to say that is not what happened. It seems a world away now.
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