web exclusive

Three Things A Woman Can Be

My uncle told me that there were three things a woman could do to make a living: be a nurse, a teacher, or a secretary. Since he wasn’t about to pay for college, and there were no other means available, I would be a secretary. It was the one job I could prepare for in high school. This was in 1966, the summer before my junior year. Through no fault of our own, my two sisters and I had ended up being “taken in” by our mother’s sister and her husband. Taken in is a quaint expression for, “poor relations landing on your doorstep and what are you going to do – turn them away?” My uncle was blunt. He’d get us through high school and after that, we were on our own.

During my sophomore year, I had won medals in Algebra II, English Composition, and History. I was president of the Beta Club, a national honors society. I was a straight-A student. But, my uncle fancied himself an expert on everything, especially women. This included how they should dress, eat, and in general, conduct themselves in all situations. With a feeling of dread, I look on as he filled out the course schedule for my upcoming junior year. Instead of calculus, I would be taking bookkeeping. Instead of French, my second language would be shorthand. Instead of chemistry, I would study typing. When we got to the part for electives, he said I could choose one class. I said I would take literature. He laughed at me.

“Don’t you know an elective is supposed to be something easy?” he said.

I just looked at him and tried to keep the enormous need I felt inside from showing on my face. Literature was easy for me – a pure pleasure - but I didn’t say that to him. After three years of living with this man, I had already learned that any show of temper, or of thinking for myself, was an invitation to a psychological ass-whuppin’ that could last for days. And, I did want to please him and my aunt. They were the only functioning parents I had left.    

Over the next couple of years, I did well in my business curriculum. Bookkeeping was a breeze after Algebra II. Shorthand was actually interesting, and Typing was a class everyone would need no matter what. For my electives, I picked up as many college prep courses as my uncle would allow. I did notice that the teachers began to treat me differently. I didn’t make the yearbook staff, even though the teacher who sponsored it had always liked my writing. I didn’t make the debate team. Instead, I was encouraged to join the Future Business Leaders Club, where I was elected secretary. The fix was in. I was no longer college material. I had been re-categorized. In school, as at home, I had once again become the poor relation.  

My aunt and uncle were both school teachers who, in their off hours, raised hogs for sale and for their own consumption. They owned over a hundred acres of land, and my sisters and I were the free labor who worked it. Before school in the mornings, after school, weekends, summers – there was always some backbreaking work that needed doing. Hogs are notorious for digging out from under fences. Farm equipment breaks down daily. Wells go dry. Vegetable gardens need planting, hoeing, and harvesting. Mules, dogs, cats, goats, hogs, cows and horses all have to be fed. Everyday. No exceptions. No vacations.

Some people romanticize the family farm. I can certainly understand that. There’s nothing more delicious than vegetables that have been plucked out of the ground at the peak of tenderness and tossed into the cooking pot. There is no sweeter meat than from an animal you have carefully raised and humanely butchered and seasoned. On a farm, your life and your work are the same thing. You don’t drive away to lock yourself in an office in order to do something for money. But the word “family” is the key ingredient in a family farm.  I couldn’t wait to drive away.

Two weeks prior to graduation, I secured a job in downtown Atlanta making $285 a month as a secretary to six men. The night of my graduation, immediately after the ceremony, my uncle drove me to the apartment I would share with my older sister and another roommate. It cost me $30 a month. I had never even been allowed to date, or make any major decisions for myself, and now I was living in a big city, free from all supervision, at a time when women were burning their bras and agitating for equal rights and opportunities.

Being a secretary, and later on an administrative assistant – that euphemistic “bone” tossed our way as a concession to the women’s movement – allowed me to support myself while pursuing my real interests in performance and writing. I never stayed in one position for very long. Mostly, I worked for temporary agencies. That way, I could delude myself into thinking that I had not become what my uncle insisted was my only option. But, I also could never allow myself to fully pursue my true interests. There was some seed of “the poor relation” that I kept as carefully watered as I had kept the family garden back home.

I’ve often wondered what my life would have been like if I’d had a parent who’d insisted, “You can be anything you want,” instead of “there are only three things a woman can be.” My uncle’s intention was to make me self-sufficient. I understand that. Back then, teaching, nursing, and secretarial careers were the only ones that welcomed women. And, they are all honorable jobs. I learned so much from being a secretary. I learned how to be organized and analytical. I learned diplomacy and business ethics. Despite the fact that the pay was generally abysmal, I knew my work was essential to the success of my employer. But, what if I had geared all my time and education towards developing my talents and genuine interests?

There is something that happens to the soul when we are forced into becoming someone other than who we are. A quaking insecurity blossoms inside us that binds us to the past.  My uncle died twenty years ago. After his passing, I slowly began to forgive him, and I realized that he was just an ordinary, though deeply fla­wed, man with an overwhelming need to control everyone around him. I am grateful for the assistance he gave my family. But, he was wrong about almost everything. There are no poor relations in this life. The better I understand that, the more I am able to open my heart and mind to all the possibilities truly intrinsic to my nature.

Janna Zonder is a freelance writer living in Asheville, NC. She has recently completed her first novel, a woman-centered mystery called, One More Crazy Thing. She can be reached at zonders@charter.net.

~Janna Zonder