Grandma Nore (Day 20)

My grandmother was a trail blazer and a rebel. She played basketball before Title IX when girls wore skirts and could not dribble. She drove the car to the post office at the age of 12 because she had not explicitly been told to walk. She put off having children until the age of 29 and "time was running out"* while she pursued a career at a bank, which she only had because no one thought to ask her during her interview if she was married. She later became one of the first female loan officers at the same company.

She once wrote:

I suppose one of the biggest satisfactions in my life has to be the small part I played in helping to prove that ability has nothing to do with gender; that women's talents should be recognized, used, and rewarded. And that women should have the right to choose what to do with their lives.

As a woman, I am truly thankful for her efforts. I certainly inherited many of her "trouble-making" (I prefer "fairness-seeking") tendencies. Despite all the advancements she and others in previous generations made, it is still troubling to have to fight for a job because you are a woman and try to stop the talk that your success is a result of your looks or your dress. (Yes, these situations both happened to me.) And still women make less than men, especially in my field - the discrepancy is huge between men and women with advanced degrees in the sciences.

I cannot imagine what it would have been like to be fighting for your gender and yourself during the depression and the second world war. At a time when they tried to wear bras as tight as possible to hide their breasts. At a time when choices were so limited. I am so lucky to have had her in my life.


*I think we can all agree that times have changed in many ways, and it seems as though 29 is now young to have children. Or maybe that is just here in the big city.