Dec. 30, 2002 - 16:50 PST

take their place

THE WONDERING JEW

The Liberry

I was looking over some of my past entries and in a way living back in that time once more. Except that it wasn't the flash powder being set off to take a photo that put me in a different world. This time it was walking through the doors of the brand new, just opened Eugene, Oregon Library. Three stories of wonders, books, terminals and chairs, ever attentive librarians, oh my, such a place.

But, for me it was not really much different than usual. Some where in the racks is a book that is connected to me by ESP or something. My feet turn in the direction of that particular rack where the book resides and my hand goes automatically to that very certain, special book. Oddly enough it usually seems to be a book I need at that time to delve into.

I was lost, running on radar, the book drew my hand, and there it was. "You're The Only One Here Who Doesn't Look Like A Doctor," by Marie-Claude Wrenn. ISBN 0-690-01420-1. A book written by a knowledgeable woman wherein several doctors, hospitals and colleges are rolled into one doctor and her travels through the profession.

The book is worth its weight in gold just for the quotes before each chapter. One is from Medical Economics of December 4, 1961, "Let's not allow our love and respect for the ladies to blind us to the relative waste of giving them medical training." Such from the world of more or less educated nincompoops in 1961.

From the first woman doctor in the United States, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. "He tried to persuade me that in the responsible duties of relieving ills which flesh is heir to, it is appropriate that man be the physician, and woman the nurse." That was way back when long before I was born. Doesn't look like much progress had been made up to 1961 to me.

She became a surgeon because the thumping, testing, waiting for results before a diagnosis could even be made turned her toward surgery. "In time it really didn't matter how long you debated; you haven't done the patient a damn bit of good until you find out what's wrong and treat them. I became disenchanted with not really doing much for the patient, but talking a lot about it," she wrote.

There is the usual run of gallows humor involved in the area of medical students first dealing with cadavers, and the male students set her up to where she was confronted with the midsection of a male with a monstrous penis. Her remark, "My, doesn't he have such big hands ?" She writes later, "As medical students we joked that orthopedists were as strong as an ox but twice as smart; the gynecologists were still trying to find out where they came from; and pediatricians were trying to prove they were better mothers than their mothers."

All that pretty well fits what I have seen in my own life, women always had to work harder, be smarter, more proficient and far seeing than men to be accepted into whatever closed society where they wanted to own a space.

I've seen studies that show that elder folk still working take fewer sick days as young people and do not leave their jobs for greener pastures very often than the younger people do. Rings true for me. Of course there are always exceptions to any rule, I know that nothing is ever 100 per cent, but the averages make sense to me.

My Mom was a working lady, and I had big ears vacuuming up what was said and mulling it over later. Women in the 1920's not only had to work for less wages than men doing the same work, they had less leeway to be off sick, let alone childbearing. Along with that a woman had to tread a fine line if she was somewhat pretty to avoid becoming the paramour, as it were, of some boss or another.

I remember reading about the sweatshops in the northeast part of our country where women and children were hard put to put food in their mouths, clothes on their bodies and shelter of some kind over their heads by working unreasonably many hours a day. Back then many business owners and consumers had the philosophy that things were the way they should be, "Shoot, if women were paid what they were worth no one could afford to buy clothes." Along with the present day idea that Anglos won't do janitorial work. Much like the current philosophy of allowing informal, illegal migration from those people from other lands. The old moneyed philosophy of, "Anglos won't do stoop labor in the fields." They failed to mention that the wages were in no way commensurate to the labor involved nor were the hours working conditions anywhere near fair to anyone. If decent wages had of been offered the lines for jobs there would have been a lot longer.

So, everyone has their turn in the barrel, but women have been in the very bottom of the barrel the longest of anyone. I wonder if women will ever truly get a fair shake from the world.

Reading seems to set me off, whether it is the newspaper, magazines, TV reports my mouth is buzzing like mad. Anyhow I had a great visit among the tomes and screens of The Liberry . . . . . . .

Blog