The Legacy

In the morning Ruby sits near the window in her rocking chair observing the world outside with a knitted blanket stretching the length of her body. The rocking chair has been in her family for over a hundred and fifty years. She had hoped that one of her daughters would have taken it for their homes but both declined, saying it was not their decorative style. Ruby knows that it will be donated to charity or thrown in a dumpster when she dies, like much of the memorabilia from her life. The idea of this should make her sad, but she realizes that her daughters will never understand or appreciate the work she and others did to provide them the comfort and equality they take for granted today.

You see, her daughters are both very successful women. They both graduated from college and went into professions previously held only by men. Renata was an executive in a large financial institution and Noemi a partner in a law firm in the city. They both married, had children and nannies, were involved in their children’s schools and were able to provide their families every experience, activity and accoutrements they desired. Ruby was incredibly proud of them, and also proud of work she and her friends had done in their early adulthood to ensure this path existed for women. But, she was also disappointed at how little her daughters recognized and appreciated it. Both women acted as if this was how the world had always been; cutting her off and shutting her down when she would tell her stories of the seventies. Eventually she stopped talking about it, talking instead about the things they wanted to talk about and hearing about their exciting lives. She will probably not live long enough to see her granddaughters into their twenties to impress upon them how far women have come because she was thirty-eight when she got married. Renata was born a year later and Noemi when she was forty-one. They both also waited to have children because they chose to establish their careers first, a decision she cheered as it was a sign that women were continuing to move forward. However, the result is that she is approaching eighty and her grandchildren are still all under the age of ten. 

The mobile phone in her lap vibrates and she sees there is an incoming call from her oldest friend Linda. She and Linda have known each other since college when they were roommates in the sorority house. Those were the days when there were three career choices for women; teachers, nurses and secretaries. Many of the girls they ran around with then had gone to college with the sole intention to find a husband. She and Linda had bonded quickly over their disgust with the idea, and both had become teachers shortly following graduation from the University of Maryland at Towson. After graduation they were hired in the same school district, Linda accepting a position as a junior high English teacher and Ruby at an elementary school. The girls had rented a two bedroom apartment in Rockville, a suburb of D.C. which meant they were front and center when the Equal Rights Act (ERA) started to gain momentum.

“Hi Linda” she answers the phone “how are you?”

“Oh you know, same old pain everywhere in my body. Ruby, this aging shit is getting old. Somedays I just want to die already” Linda replies.

“Oh stop. If you die before me I will never forgive you”.

“I can live with that. What is the plan for bridge tonight?” Linda asks.

“Same plan for the last fifty years Linda, bridge at my house at six o’clock” Ruby sarcastically replies. 

“Will you come early to help me get ready?”  Ruby asks.

“Every time for over fifty years Ruby” Linda replies giving the sarcasm right back to her.

“Well, I am just checking. You could have something better to do” Ruby replies with a half-laugh, half-snort. 

Ruby and Linda play bridge, a card game, once a month with six other women. They had joined the group shortly after college though the members of the group have changed as people die or drop out. Their current group consists of women of every age group from their thirties to their eighties. It has become the social event Ruby looks forward to every month as it is an opportunity to reminisce and share stories about the past with younger women who appear to appreciate the stories she and Linda share, even thanking them and expressing gratitude for the work they had done on their behalf. 

The Equal Rights Amendment had been approved in Congress in 1972. Ruby and Linda had been young, ambitious, single and eager to get involved in important causes. So, for the better part of the decade they were regulars at marches and activities to support the ratification. In fact, it was at the march in 1978 that both women had met their husbands. Back then there were not a lot of men who openly supported the ERA, so finding two at once felt miraculous to the girls. The march had been to support the extension of the typical seven year time period for ratification and it was successful. But still it failed to get the support required to be ratified to amend the Constitution. 

Ruby and Linda had dressed in all white for the march on that hot and humid, typical Washington D.C. July day. They had spent the month before preparing their outfits, like many other attendees, to look like the early suffragists; white plain dresses with a black sash across the chest and tied at the waist and integrating purple, white and green into their wardrobe. The suffragettes had balked at previous images of women as tough and rugged, preferring to embrace and celebrate their femininity. That day Ruby and Linda had added wicker hats with the tricolor ribbon to add some protection from the sun. Back then they had been very active in organizations supporting women, including NOW, as they had plenty of time to devote to causes that improved the lives of people, especially women. The night before they made their signs from poster board, gluing them carefully to wood stakes they purchased at the hardware store. In the morning, they packed their backpacks with snacks, drove to the metro station and boarded the red line train for the National Mall. Their ride time was approximately thirty minutes and when they exited the Metro Center station they emerged into the largest crowd of women they had ever witnessed. Originally the estimate was that thirty to forty thousand people attended the event, but they later heard it was closer to one hundred thousand in attendance. 

The march was applauded for being relatively peaceful despite the large crowds, in stark contrast to the violent anti-war protests the country was used to. Ruby and Linda had enjoyed the day tremendously; the feeling of sisterhood with so many women, the inspiring speeches from powerful women including Gloria Steinem. They had met Robert and Henry early in the day, joining them for dinner after the march. None of them could have imagined that day would lead to marriages, children, divorce, death and more than forty years of friendship.

“I’m seventy plus years old Ruby. I literally have nothing better to do than help you. I will see you about four-thirty” Linda said and ended the call. Linda was never one for small talk; something many people found abrupt and off-putting, and one of Ruby’s favorite of her friend’s traits. 

While they were never drawn to the bra burning or more radical actions of the sixties, they believed in the goal of the National Organization for Women of a “fully equal partnership of the sexes” and the world described by Gloria Steinem in her essay from 1970 “What It Would Be Like If Women Win”. As teachers, both Ruby and Linda felt a responsibility to balance the sexes in their classrooms, making sure that boys and girls performed tasks previously outside of their gender role. For example, after an art project, the boys would wash the brushes while the girls rearranged the furniture. Or the girls would be chosen as team captains one day and boys the next, for physical education. They had to be careful of course, as back then these ideas were considered radical and as new teachers they knew they could be putting their jobs at risk. They never discussed why they were running the classroom this way with the children, they simply ran their classrooms as they saw fit. 

While they attended marches and rallies in support of the ERA they also listened to and considered the thoughts of Phyllis Schlafly who led the opposition to the amendment. Ruby and Linda had often felt torn, as if to be real women they had to choose a side. Ultimately they fell to the side of supporting the proposed amendment. But they had vigorous conversations, debates even, about the two distinct sides to the issues. The couples would have dinner and drinks and often discuss the merits of the arguments of each side, in support and opposition of the amendment. The men often argued more vigorously in support of the proposed constitutional amendment, where the women found themselves relating to some of the arguments against it. Ruby and Linda both knew many women who were very satisfied in their traditional roles as wives and mothers and led very fulfilling lives. The concerns about the 14th amendment being sufficient and that the ERA could potentially be detrimental to women in certain situations made sense when presented with specific examples. It was a frustrating position to be in, especially living so close to the epicenter of democracy, especially when the supporters of the proposed amendment were uncivil, disrespectful and suggested violence against their opposition. As this behavior became more frequent, Ruby and Linda found themselves less interested in attending marches and support events. 

Early in the next decade both couples married, purchased homes in the suburbs and started families. The women found themselves asking each other why had they rallied against this lifestyle when they were younger. They never felt less important or worthy to the world because they loved their families, taking care of their children and having clean and organized homes. They also recognized that they had options and exercised them daily, something women of the past and in other societies did not experience and they were grateful for the work they had been involved in to move the roles of women in society forward. But they had a growing concern with the tone of the women’s liberation movement. It soon seemed that abortion, a deeply personal issue that left many women feeling conflicted, was the symbol of women’s freedom and advancement. This was a concept that the friends struggled to make sense of and as they began to see the rhetoric move from equality of men and women, to women being better or more worthy than men they felt less in sync with the movement. 

Over time, Ruby and Linda were disheartened by the change in the message of movement and it’s constant unwarranted criticism of men. Men were generalized as toxic and misogynists, especially white men, accused of “man-splaining” anytime they spoke to a woman. They realized that men with these behaviors certainly existed, but the reality was that it was unfair to generalize all men in such a way. The world needed strong, rugged men and strong rugged men did not always equal misogynists. They worked hard to help their daughter’s see through the rhetoric, to see that there were specific men who were interested in seeing women kept down, but that most men were just trying to get through the day doing what was right and just. Ruby once said to Linda “when did the movement for equality for women become defined as demonizing and emasculating men? That was not what we signed up for”. 

Ruby looked at her watch and realized that she needed to start getting things ready for the bridge group. Her husband had died unexpectedly ten years earlier and she often found the quiet of the home made her more susceptible to getting distracted and lost in her thoughts. They were just settling into their empty nest years; she was enjoying working in the garden while Henry tinkered out in his shop, when she found him dead in the shower one afternoon. There was a part of her that felt robbed, they had looked forward to so much in their retirement years. He had been a good man, a bit boring at times, but always supportive of her and the girls. Together they had prepared their daughters for the world by teaching them life skills that fell into both traditional gender roles. Henry taught them to cook and change a tire on the car, while she introduced them to basic sewing and the difference between a flat head and Phillips head screwdriver. The girls learned to clean the house and mow the lawn, understanding that those were things adult homeowners did, regardless of their gender. She was very proud of their approach to parenting, though she wished her daughters were more interested in understanding her history. 

Ruby showered and then made her way to the kitchen, looking forward to the evening to come. When the food was prepared, she returned to her rocking chair hoping for a quick cat nap before Linda arrived. Within a few minutes she had closed her eyes, a vision of her and Linda wearing all white and carrying signs while marching past the Washington monument fresh in her mind as she drifted off to sleep.