gender inequality – Tess Perko's Blog

ADAPTED FORTUNE COOKIE WISDOM

Today, I broke open a fortune cookie to find this fortune: “The really great man is the man who makes everyone feel great.” Since I’m a woman, I immediately changed “man” to “woman” so that I could apply it to myself. Then, the more I thought about it, the more I liked my “adapted” quote better.

When people think about the great characteristics of men, they often include “leadership” as one of those traits. Not so for women. Good traits for great women often include self-effacement, submissiveness, sweetness, and obedience.

I inserted “woman” in this fortune to point out that women don’t have to be doormats or voiceless handmaidens to bring greatness into the world. In contrast, women who act as spineless or voiceless females hurt and limit the potential of both themselves and men. I know women who are their family’s breadwinners, but who still allow their husbands to act as the “head of the family.” I also know women who are treated so badly in their relationships that they have no power whatsoever—no equal voice in their marriage, no personal confidence, and no respect from their children. These situations occur when men act as insensitive partners and women allow men to control and diminish their lives.

Women can be transformative leaders, but it’s going to take a global village to make that become a natural expectation.

I’ve spent the last five years writing my first novel, Learning to Whistle, about a woman finding her personal power, something that all women struggle to do. My novel is coming out on April 7, 2026 by She Writes Press, a publisher that has been a true blessing in my life.

Through the community of She Writes Press, I’ve learned about the countless ways that women and men can boost the success of women. First of all, I’ve learned that publishing is a process. Experiencing the progressions of editing, rewriting, re-examining, publicizing, and sharing success has given my writing life a bigger vision to follow. With my new perspective, I will forever learn better ways to express myself and to make a difference. My writing career isn’t dependent upon how much I publish, but, instead, about how I nurture my own heart and how many other souls I raise up.

I’ve learned about the power of community and that people who promote the success of others experience their own greater rewards. I’ve cheered for my fellow She Writes Press authors when they win awards and followed their social media pages. I’ve purchased their books, read them, and written reviews.

But, in return, I’ve received immeasurable benefits. Through my fellow She Writes Press authors, I’ve found a reputable company to publish the audio book of my novel. Through Brooke Warner’s Substack posts, I’ve discovered great memoirs, such as Joyride by Susan Orlean and All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, & Liberation by Elizabeth Gilbert, which have exposed me to examples of the grit it takes to be a successful author. Warner also connected me to Jane Friedman, who publishes her own writing blog and offers numerous writing classes. My publicist, Caitlin Hamilton Summie, introduced me to podcasts and blogs that promote writers such as Compulsive Reader that, on December 28, 2025, published an interview of me by my daughter, Rachael Brandt at https://compulsivereader.com/2025/12/28/an-interview-with-tess-perko/ on December 28, 2025. Hamilton-Summie also connected me to the author Suzanne Simonetti, who writes alluringly realistic tales about women and their struggles—good writing I can emulate.

I don’t suppose anyone will ever label me as a “great” woman, but, then again, I don’t seek fame. I seek to be—not a doormat, not a handmaid, not only a mother, not merely a wife, not solely a friend—but a full participant in the human race who happens to have the valuable perspective of being a woman.

What am I going to focus on in 2026—polishing my leadership skills until I lead with grace and ease.

Women: Six Sure Ways to Empower Your Leadership Ability

My parents didn’t raise me to be a leader. I was taught to be a follower, that women were supposed to be demure, passive, obedient, and silent. This early training manifested itself in numerous ways; for example, I expected men to drive, my dates to pay the bill, and males to make the important decisions.

Thinking this way hindered my ability to grow to my full potential for decades. I had to learn to overcome the proclivity not to give my opinion, disagree, stand up for my beliefs, or lead others. When I worked in the corporate world, I experienced discrimination which only perpetuated my lack of development, but, finally, when I took a job in the field of education, I was encouraged to lead and to think with unlimited potential because my teaching job demanded it.

I want to share some of the ways that I changed my perspective from being reluctant to becoming empowered with leadership ability.

Adopt New Roles

Women can practice being leaders by adopting new roles within their personal lives. After I married my husband, he lost interest in driving. At first, I didn’t like taking on this responsibility, but when I associated driving with exercising my leadership skills, I felt positive about it, and now I’m comfortable driving all the time. This may seem like a small change, but it helped me adjust to being in charge in other situations as well. It’s easier to take one step at a time than to jump up the whole staircase.

Practice Speaking to a Variety of Audiences

Teaching is one of the best ways to practice speaking in front of an audience. First of all, teaching requires daily or almost daily speaking to students, and a teacher can become well-practiced at opening and closing lines which occur for each class period. Another advantage to practicing speaking as a teacher is that the teacher is considered the most knowledgeable person in the room, which automatically builds confidence. The teacher develops her lesson plans, practices them, and presents the information in ways for all types of learners to understand. This involves work and a lot of practice.

People who want to become leaders can take the opportunity to become a teacher for others. All disciplines and industries need strong teachers.

Speaking as a leader, however, involves communicating to a variety of audiences: peers, colleagues with different skills, superiors, or strangers. Each type of audience has different expectations and a leader must anticipate what they are and how to fulfill them.

Some women join a Toastmasters group to learn how to be comfortable speaking about a variety of subjects to a variety of audiences. Others speak up when they attend conferences with peers, and some volunteer to lead charitable groups.

Admit Mistakes

One of the best ways for a leader to bond with an audience is to admit when she makes a mistake while speaking. She may misspell a word, forget a plus sign, or explain a concept incorrectly. Someone in her audience may point out her mistake, or she may find it herself while speaking. Audiences are human and they’ve made mistakes, too, so when a speaker confesses that she has blundered and admits it, the audience feels that she is more approachable, likeable, and believable.

Use Affirmations to Build Courage

Fear is the number one impediment in becoming a leader, and so I’ve found a way to build courage whenever I become anxious. On the bulletin board next to the desk where I write, I have pinned an affirmation that says I lead with grace and ease. This affirmation helps me remember that being a leader doesn’t have to be stressful. If I know I have the potential, I can approach leadership as if it is a natural expression of my personality. I keep my affirmation close by and recite it aloud whenever I see it.

Emulate Other Female Leaders

I am involved in a women’s charitable organization. One of the women in the group speaks in front of our meetings with confidence, talks loudly enough for everyone to hear, presents informative material, employs a sense of humor, and exudes a positive attitude. I admire her.

When I had to lead an important luncheon, I decided that I was going to try to emulate this woman. I spoke clearly, added a joke or two, and presented our honored guests with a gracious and optimistic manner.

After the luncheon was over, this woman sent me an email telling me that she was astounded with my leadership ability. How ironic that I was trying to emulate her. Of course, I let her know and now we admire each other.

Let Others Shine

A leader doesn’t always have to do all the talking. The best leaders give the spotlight to others so that they can shine. For example, teachers often ask students to explain a concept or to analyze a piece of literature. Directors ask their managers to update a team about a project’s progress, and chairpersons are expected to inform an organization about committee work.

When I was leading a charitable luncheon during which the organization awarded scholarships to college students, I asked each scholarship recipient to share his or her story with the club members. Their stories were profoundly interesting and took up more time than I did in presenting them. The luncheon was an astounding success due to the fact that the club members felt a connection with the recipients after learning their stories. All I did was stand back and let them speak.

Women have numerous talents to share with their communities, but many of us have been trained to take a back seat. It’s time for women to sit in the front. Both women and the world would benefit from more female drivers.

A Place for All of Us

Last week, I saw Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story with Rachel Zegler as Maria and Ansel Elgort as Tony. Rita Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 version, played Valentina, the wife of Doc, who was the original owner of Valentina’s drugstore.

This fabulous musical—which whips emotions into a frenzy with enthusiastic dancing and impassioned characters—was relevant back in 1961, a time when racism was high in the United States. For goodness sakes, the Civil Rights Act wasn’t even passed until 1964, three years after this original musical.

The Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, and later sexual orientation and gender identity. This act sought to establish equality for voter registrations, prohibited racial segregation in schools and public places, and outlawed discrimination in employment.

West Side Story, first written in 1957 by Jerome Robbins was inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Remember, Romeo and Juliet came from two different feuding families in Verona. Robbins wanted his lovers to come from two different religions in America—Maria was to be a Jewish girl and Tony was supposed to be from a Catholic family.

But when Laurents and Leonard Bernstein started collaborating on the musical, they drew inspiration from the Chicano riots in Los Angeles. By the time the musical was complete, the setting had been moved to New York and the opposing gangs were represented by the Puerto Ricans and poor white communities of the city’s West Side.

The 2021 version is spectacular, and as relevant as ever. The two opposing factions could be any community in America: men verses women, Whites verses Blacks, heterosexuals verses gays, Christians verses Muslims. Even though the 1964 Civil Rights Act was supposed to establish equality for every person in the United States, it didn’t.

People aren’t equal here, and diversity still seems to threaten our various cultures. Women have not achieved equal pay for equal work, and, even when they work, they experience inequality at home when they are expected to bear most of the responsibility for raising children and doing housework.

African American men are viewed as dangerous and irresponsible and too often become the targets of police officers or white vigilantes. Furthermore, African Americans are dehumanized for their dark skin and course and curly hair.

Muslims are labeled as terrorists just because they share the same religion with terrorists on the other side of the world.

When gay couples want to have children, they are criticized and ostracized. Transgender individuals are the victims of rape and ridicule.

American society is still a white supremist society, and most white people don’t understand how pervasive this damaging attitude is to the non-white cultures of our country. So when two people from different cultures fall in love, their ability to sustain that love is fraught with hatred from their respective communities.

In Steven Spielberg’s version of West Side Story, Rita Moreno sings the song that begins with “There’s a place for us, some where a place for us.” She sings about a place with peace, quiet, and open air. She sings about a time for togetherness, time for recreation, time for learning and caring.

The poor and discriminated in the United States don’t live in places of peace and quiet. They live in places filled with pollution, noise, and stress. They don’t enjoy togetherness when families break down due to financial hardship and lack of opportunity. They don’t have time to play. Stress takes up their opportunities to learn, and they don’t feel like anyone cares.

I cried in the dark theater as Rita Moreno sang this song.

When will women ever feel as equal as men in American society? When will their assertiveness and leadership be valued as much? When will African Americans overcome the cavernous damages that slavery imposed upon them? When will religions ever learn to respect every individual no matter their gender, sexual orientation, or creed?

Rita Moreno sang about how, if we hold hands, we can be “halfway there.” Holding hands requires empathy for one another. We’re not practicing empathy too well these days.

Let’s really get into each other shoes. Choose the people who are the most unlike you, and ask yourself, “How would I like to be treated?” Maybe then, we can start holding hands and finding a place for all of us.

Hidden

Photo by Anton Darius on Unsplash

Sylvia had a secret. One that rolled around in her stomach like a marble in a maze, bashing against the walls until they bruised, swirling her energy into anxiety.

Sylvia’s friend Ruth told detailed stories about how her mother psychologically abused her during her teenage years. When they were cleaning out her grandmother’s house after her death, Susan had wanted her grandmother’s wooden chest full of yarn. Her mother refused to let her have it, and, instead, gave it to Susan’s older sister who didn’t even knit. Susan wondered for decades why she wasn’t good enough to have such a treasured keepsake and why her mother had favored her sister over her. Ruth told everyone about the hurts in her background, but she still walked around like a broken doll, permanently damaged, as if nothing could ever erase the scars she had suffered.

When Ruth talked about her feelings, Sylvia flashed her own memories across her mind about how her father had favored her sister over her. “Isn’t she beautiful,” she remembered he had said. Sylvia had looked in the mirror countless times wondering why no one ever called her beautiful. She had clear skin, thick hair, blazing green eyes. Weren’t green eyes as pretty as blue ones?

Her friend Paul had told her about how his father was never around. He never played sports with him, never sat with him on the couch for a game of chess, never even got to his high-school graduation until Paul had already walked across the stage and waved to his mother who was frantically waving back with both hands, as if she was waving for two. Even today, Paul’s father didn’t act like a father, but like a distant friend who sent him an article once in awhile about a topic that never related to Paul’s life. Paul had worked hard to build self-confidence, but struggling with a narcissistic father made that an up-and-down journey.

Sylvia’s friend Jen talked about her childhood, too. She told Sylvia how a sixteen-year-old neighbor boy had raped her when she was eleven, luring her into his backyard shed one afternoon and slowly removing her clothes while he talked to her about the different birds in the garden. Jen said that it was therapeutic to talk about it after so many years of keeping it hidden. At first, she was embarrassed that it had happened to her. What did she do to encourage that boy anyway? Why did she let him get her into the shed by herself? Didn’t she know better? Sylvia didn’t see how Jen had let go of the trauma if she still had all these questions in her mind.

When Jen talked, Sylvia nodded empathetically: “It wasn’t your fault. He took advantage of you. He was stronger, and you couldn’t have stopped him.” Inside her chest, however, Sylvia carefully drew a curtain in front of her own heart, shielding it from the memory of her own secret, stopping her from the minute-by-minute re-enactment of the scene, her shame, her acquiescence, her fear of exposure.

Sylvia didn’t want her friends to know she had suffered so much, had been irreparably violated. Maybe someone would use the information about her secret as revenge if they ever got angry at her. They would expose her in front of people she didn’t trust, and she would endure more embarrassment than she could handle.

Sylvia had spent years searching for her own self-esteem, her worthiness to be loved, her value as a treasured friend, her worth as an employee, her right to be happy at all. She thought that she should go talk to someone about her secret so that she could get it off her chest. Would that even work?

Finally, she made an appointment with a female minister at a church she did not attend. She told the woman about her secret, and asked her what she should do to heal from it.

“First, ask God for forgiveness. God will forgive anyone, even if you can’t forgive. Once, you’re comfortable that God has forgiven you, then forgive yourself and anyone else involved.”

Sylvia had worked on forgiving herself and the other person involved for years. Nevertheless, the memories, surfaced again and again like a nightmare when she least expected them. Sometimes, she even invited them into her thoughts as if she could purge them out of existence by focusing on them one last final time.

Nothing stopped the nightmares. They came while she was sleeping in a vivid stream, and her fear rose incrementally during the dream until she would awaken all of a sudden, gasping for breath like she had been under water the whole time. Her forehead was drenched with sweat, her heart tight with shame.

Sylvia did feel the pain of her friends, and because she did, she could listen to their stories and offer some solace just by suffering with them. She also understood the pain that her students told her about.

Samantha was a student in Sylvia’s college composition class. Samantha’s mother had kicked her and her three-year-old daughter out of the house, and, now Samantha experienced anxiety that interfered with her performance at school. Sylvia had counseled Samantha through several episodes of anxiety, and she had passed her English class in spite of her mother.

Van suffered from post-traumatic-stress-syndrome ever since he returned from Iraq, and his significant other left him right in the middle of the semester. Since Sylvia knew what anxiety and poor self esteem felt like, she coached Van step by step until he, too, passed his writing class.

So many of her community college students needed emotional support in order to pass their classes. Owen’s father beat him. Misty lived with five family members in a noisy, two-bedroom apartment. Monica’s parents wanted her to get married like a dutiful Islam daughter and give up going to school. Randall had spent two weeks living out of his car during the semester until his uncle let him live in his garage.

Sylvia knew that if she put in more effort to help these students, they could succeed and improve their lives through education and awareness of other opportunities. Yet, sometimes, as Sylvia sat beside one student or another, she felt like a broken human being trying to help another broken soul.

Was it true that people who never felt loved died of heart attacks? Most mornings, she woke up with a tight chest. She lay in bed breathing in and out of her nose until her chest relaxed a little, but the tightness never fully went away.

Most people had a secret, didn’t they? Weren’t most people walking around, hiding their secrets underneath their shirts, their polite manners, their rudeness, their abusive characters, their anxiety, their bullying, their surrender, and their repeated attempts at survival?

Yes, they were, Sylvia knew. She was, too. She had endured so many scars and affronts to her character, yet here she was, carrying her secret around like a satchel of wisdom.

Really, she thought she deserved a medal.

Consideration and Other Covid-19 Behaviors

Way before the age of the internet, the Civil Rights Movement of 1965, the birth of Millennials and the X and Z generations, Emily Post (1872-1960) was promoting cultural humility through her advice about good etiquette.

The practice of cultural humility promotes the putting aside of rigid personal perspectives and becoming open to the viewpoints of others. When I engage in cultural humility, I become humble in the promotion of my own understandings and, in my newly-created humility, make room for comprehending the culture of others, especially those cultures that differ greatly from my own. In this process, I contribute to making my community a positive place for all inhabitants to live and thrive.

Post said that “consideration for the rights and feelings of others is not merely a rule for behavior in public but the very foundation upon which social life is built.”

What she meant was that consideration for others or the lack of it establishes the foundation of social life. In places where people show great thoughtfulness for others, social life is positive and fruitful. When people lack consideration for one another, their social life is injured, broken, and painful.

But what did Post mean by consideration? It turns out that she interpreted the meaning of consideration the same as the meaning of cultural humility. To Post, consideration benefits all of people involved in a decision, encourages a positive outcome, a better community.

In promoting good etiquette, Post described other qualities that should exist along with consideration.

Respect is shown through actions and words. When I talk about another individual, I honor and value them regardless of their race, creed, gender, or any other possible classification. I treat them as equal to me and 100 percent worthy of esteem. This even includes the treatment of people that I may easily consider morally less than me, such as a prisoner in jail for robbing a bank or selling cocaine.

In his book Just Mercy, for example, Brian Stevenson explains that, because of the inherent biases in our legal system, we should honor and act merciful toward all imprisoned people. Some of them have been punished with harsh sentences for insignificant crimes, some are mentally impaired and lacked adequate defense during their trials, and some are even innocent.

With great difficulty and effort, Stevenson, through his organization, Equal Justice Initiative, secured release and freedom for Walter McMillian, a young man sentenced to the Death Penalty for a murder he did not commit.

Stevenson makes an even more profound point in his book. He claims convincingly that “each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

How many of us have skeletons in our closets, secrets from our teenage years, or idiotic histories from our youth? Maybe we stole a bottle of scotch from a liquor store when we were in high school just to see if we could do it. Maybe we drove while intoxicated after a college party, but we never got stopped by the police. Maybe we smoked marijuana before it was legal and even inhaled, or maybe we did something that is best left in our past because it would mar our current balanced, respected reputation. When we think back over our own mistakes, we easily can agree with Stevenson that “each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

Another aspect of respect is self-respect. When someone possesses self-respect, they are equipped to honor others. Self-respect avoids pushiness or boastfulness from conversation and encourages self-confidence. When someone is self-confident, they don’t worry about their physical appearance or abilities, but act with integrity and good character, qualities of lasting substance.

Post’s etiquette and the concept of cultural humility also involve “honesty.” Honesty is knowing our characters and maturity are flawed, yet still trying to speak the truth in a positive way. Honesty is using our understanding of truth, but recognizing that as we grow and learn, our truth will become a greater expression of love than we are able to express today.

Graciousness was also favored by Post, which she defined as the ability to make everyone feel welcome. This, too, is the essential purpose of cultural humility. We open our arms to everyone no matter if they are rich or poor, heterosexual or homosexual, Jewish or Muslim, African or African American, Chinese or Korean, or male or female. In graciousness, we hug each and every human being and make them feel secure and comfortable in our society.

“I am so happy that you got such a big raise, my friend.”

“Your husband is always welcome at our dinners, Mark.”

“Would your rabbi let me join your Jewish history class. I’m so fascinated.”

“Tell me about how your family observes Ramadan, Raul. I want to learn about your religion.”

“When did you decide you wanted to become a doctor, Krystal? I think you’ll be a great one.”

All of these welcoming statements express graciousness.

Finally, Post promoted the practice of kindness as part of good etiquette; likewise, cultural humility cannot exist without the expression of kindness between two people of different backgrounds. Kindness is warmth from the heart, a transfer of love from one person to another. When I am practicing kindness, I’m unable to judge, discriminate, belittle, or condemn another human being. I’m treating people as my equals.

In this day of social distancing, etiquette and cultural humility, both, can help us navigate our new society, hopefully an environment which is temporary, but now reality. We have been ordered to stay six feet apart, wear masks in public places, and cover our hands with gloves to protect us from the Corona Virus.

What should we do when we meet people who are not following these protocols and potentially endangering themselves and other people?

If we look to Emily Post’s advice and the practice of cultural humility, we must remember to respect, be honest, act graciously, and confer kindness in our interactions.

Instead of yelling at someone to back up six feet so we don’t get their germs—“Back up, you bozo!”—instead, we could explain that we are concerned about their safety, so it would be better for them if they left more distance between us.

When witnessing potentially harmful activity such as a gathering in a park, etiquette and cultural humility encourage us to avoid jumping to criticism. An alternative would be to say, “Isn’t it great to get outside! Don’t forget to stay six feet apart while you’re having fun.”

If we run into a customer at Safeway who is not wearing a mask, we don’t have to shame her for her insensitive behavior, which only makes us insensitive. We can nod to her in a friendly way and explain that we feel more comfortable following the mask rule so as to avoid getting infected. Then, send her on her way with “Stay healthy, my friend.”

If we see our neighbor’s gardener drive up, good etiquette and cultural humility guides us to refrain from judging in case we misjudge instead. Perhaps the worker is cleaning up the weeds in the back of our neighbor’s house, which qualifies as an essential service. If the gardener is not doing essential business, but just mowing the lawn and trimming the hedges, we might think about the type of relationship we would like to foster with our neighbor in the long term. Avoiding confrontation or criticism now can help us to maintain our good connections that promote a friendly and safer neighborhood for everyone involved.

After this pandemic has passed and our lives get back to a more normal state, if we’ve practiced good etiquette and cultural humility, we’ll have developed good habits for the rest of our lives.

In addition to fostering better relationships and communities, we’ll have grown into more caring, considerate, and loving human beings. Our new etiquette-minded, culturally-humble perspective will make us more joyful and help us foster happier relationships.

Achieving Belovedness

The African American woman has the most to complain about in America. She, after all, was brought here against her will in the bowels of a ship, raped by her master before she turned fourteen, bore his illegitimate children, fell in love with her lighter progeny, lost her mind when her children were ripped away and sold to other plantations, lashed across her back and legs when she did not submit, and forced to smile day after day beside her master’s wife.

To understand the African American woman’s plight, we must contemplate the plight of all women in America.

Most still have not achieved equity. This is tragic, especially for a country that pats itself on the back for its individual rights. No, American women don’t all wear veils and burkas, but their voices still are silenced and subjected to the will of men in power.

Blatant examples exist all throughout American society.

One example: American Catholic women have no voices. The power of the church is carefully guarded and only granted to males through church “laws” that maintain male power. When Catholic women speak, they are expected to follow the strict rules set down by Catholic men ever since the church was first adopted as the official Roman Empire religion. Never mind that, prior to the Roman take-over, Christian prayer groups were once led by women. Catholic women are not encouraged to think independently; instead, they are coerced into following orders. Like soldiers in the military: valued for their obedience, not their wholesome humanity.

In American culture, women are raped and blamed for their acquiescence. They are prevented from rising above the glass ceiling while blamed for having children. They are paid less than men who hold the same jobs and blamed for not working harder.

Even First Lady Melania Trump walks like a voiceless doll next to her husband. When she is asked a question, her answer is amended by the opinion of her husband. And so, she is silenced, muzzled.

But the African American woman has suffered some of the greatest indignities. Perhaps this is why Toni Morrison chose to be her voice. In interviews, Morrison said that she wanted to tell the story of the female slave: what being a woman was like under the yoke of bondage, the lack of having a voice or will, the scourge of being at the mercy of selfish and insensitive men.

I first read Beloved by Toni Morrison when I was a mother of two young children. Much as I wanted to appreciate the story, written by this African American professor whom I admired for her achievements, I was confused. Trying to understand how a dead daughter floated in and out of her mother’s life and then lived and haunted her mother, sister, and friends for over a year was intriguing, but what was the author’s point?

I was frustrated that I couldn’t understand the story. Was my white privilege so strong that my heart was unable to empathize with a slave woman’s experience? Was I too comfortable in my white prosperity that I didn’t really want to understand? I knew that slavery was immoral, but what else could I learn? Clearly, Morrison had pondered about the African American story for a long time. She knew a story that I didn’t know, and I longed to overcome my ignorance.

After I read Beloved, I read every Morrison novel I could find: Sula, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby, The Bluest Eye. I also read essays which spoke to the aspects of Morrison’s writing such as “Toward the Limits of Mystery: The Grotesque in Toni Morrison’s Beloved” by Susan Corey. Then, finally, I read one of Morrison’s own essays, “The Source of Self-Regard,” in which she supposes that Beloved is an intimate version of history.

Much to my surprise, Beloved is based on a true story of a run-away slave named Margaret Garner. While being pursued as a fugitive slave, Gardner slit the throats of three of her children so they wouldn’t have to return to the cruelty of slavery and endure the abuse and torture that she knew too well. One of those children died. Remarkably, Garner wasn’t tried for murder; she was tried for the theft of her master’s property. Proving that history is carved by those in power.

In Morrison’s fictional version, the protagonist is Sethe. Sethe escapes from Sweet Home Plantation with her four children across the Ohio River to Cincinnati. When the slave-catchers find her, she grabs her kids and hides in a woodshed where she slits the throats of three of her babies. Her two older boys live, but her oldest daughter dies in her arms. We never learn this dead baby’s name, but Sethe has the word “Beloved” etched into her tombstone. Her younger daughter, Denver, is uninjured.

Abolitionists succeed in securing Sethe and her three remaining children’s freedom, and she moves into a house in the community. When the boys become teenagers, they leave home, tired of their mother’s grief for Beloved and wanting to become men.

One day, neighbors find a strange adolescent girl sleeping outside of Sethe’s house, and they believe it is Sethe’s dead daughter Beloved. Sethe becomes enamored with Beloved; she cooks for her, bathes her in affection, and ignores her other daughter.

A former fellow slave, Paul D., escapes captivity and finds his way to Sethe’s house. He, at first, removes Beloved’s ghost from the house, but later, when Beloved has transformed into a more physical presence, she seduces him and becomes pregnant with his child.

Once I understood that Morrison wanted to tell the story of the female slave. I decided to read Beloved again. To hear the female slave’s voice. To feel her pain and sorrow. To experience her fear and dread. I finally felt like I was ready to understand the meaning of the story that had eluded me for twenty years.

This is what my second reading of Beloved taught me.

When Sethe is attacked in the plantation’s barn by the Schoolteacher’s grown nephews while her husband watches from the rafters, I feel her indignity—a knife thrust into the pin cushion of her femininity. They drink the milk from her breasts that she needs for her infant. Not only do they rob her of her intimacy, but they harm her child’s viability. These men violate her center, the core of her femaleness. Tragically, her husband, her one-time protector, dies from insanity, not having the power to save her, and she loses his partnership.

When Sethe takes the life of her daughter, her already weakened core responds, and she acts out of distress—trying to save her children from all the abuse that their parents have endured. At least in death, they can find peace; in a slave’s life, peace will never come.

But Sethe suffers dearly for her actions. Psychologically, she lives in anxiety, questioning whether or not she made the right choice for her child. No matter what the child’s name, the child is her “beloved.”

The pain of Sethe’s conscience is so deep that she believes that Beloved comes back to her, so that she can make up for depriving her mother’s love. This is a manifestation of Sethe’s guilt. Whether or not Beloved is really present is unimportant; in Sethe’s mind, Beloved is present, loved, lost, wanted, missed, and grieved. Beloved can also wound Sethe, and she does when she becomes pregnant with Paul D. Like betrayal, the loss of a child hurts acutely and forever.

Sethe’s suffering is raw, violent, and close to the surface. Her pain wracks her body with weakness and her soul with despair. She can barely live, and has no need for freedom after she has lost so much of herself.

At the end of the story, Sethe tells Paul D., “She was my best thing.” This means that when Beloved died, Sethe died with her. She lost her willingness to live, he ability to think without guilt or sorrow, and even her capacity to love her other children completely so that they could enjoy their free lives.

Female slaves lost not only physical dignity, but also their emotional and psychological self-possession.

Paul D. corrects her gently: “You your best thing Sethe.” What he is asserting is that she can overcome her deep grief and loss and find a way to recapture who she is. She can wash up her battered body and mind and live the present. Put the past in the past. It does not have to define her.

As an American female, I am the African American’s sister; I, too, have lived with the loss of dignity. Even though my damage does not equal the forfeiture of slavery, I have been slashed by violations, a lack of voice, and scars of discrimination.

I stretch out my femaleness, my soft center, my vulnerable heart to my African American sister so we can raise each other up, celebrate our communal bond, and feel unified. Our past does not determine our future. We have changes to make in this America.

Clearly Bothered

I felt like a target, sitting in a dark theater with a hundred college students and only one other professor.

Movie Theater — I felt like a target, sitting in a dark theater with a hundred college students and only one other professor . . .

One night after I teaching my courses at Diablo Valley College, I attended the showing of a movie—Sorry to Bother You—written and directed by Boots Riley, who will be coming to campus in March as part of Black History Events.

The movie is an artistic commentary about the negative characteristics of capitalism. The main character Cassius Green, who is Black, gets a job as a telemarketer and finds out that he is successful only when he uses his “white voice,” a nasally, high-pitched tenor with overtones of lassitude and a lack of interest.

Just as the poorly-paid telemarketers unify to demand a union and better pay, Green is promoted to the “Power Telemarketer” floor where he enjoys the luxury of a modern office and sells labor for a company named Worry-Free.

While Green is enjoying the parties, alcohol, and access to the CEO of Worry-Free, he learns that the company transforms humans into horse-like creatures who can work harder and stronger than the average human, creating even more profits for capitalistic, greedy companies. Green’s girlfriend informs him that all labor is slave labor when capitalism controls the corporate culture. The employees work at the mercy of those in power, thus having no rights or voices.

Finally, in the end, Green quits his job, gets back his pure-of-heart girlfriend, and retains his morality.

I walked into the theater right at 4 p.m., thinking the movie would be starting on time. The room: a theater with about three hundred seats that stepped down to a big screen, where a podium stood to the side with a laptop set up to show the movie. An IT woman, that occasionally comes to my classroom to fix technical problems, stood behind the podium.

I looked around before choosing a seat. Feeling a little overwhelmed, I sat in a seat on the right aisle about six rows from the door.

Scattered in the rest of the seats were students who did not reflect the diverse nature of the college. About half were Black, sitting in twos and threes, sprinkled throughout the room. Several Asian students, sitting by themselves, also filled the seats. Three white students sat together. Where were the Hispanics, Middle Easterners, Indians, and Native Americans? I saw no professors—the people in the room were all in their teens and twenties.

Waiting for my English colleague who was bringing her class to the showing, I changed my seat to an aisle seat in the middle section of the room. Definitely felt like I needed some physical support in this room that did not reflect either my age group or my status. Finally, I’ll call her Carol, Carol walked in with her class—an assortment that more reflected our college’s diversity, and I adjusted more comfortably into my seat.

At about 4:15 p.m. a Black man strode down to the podium and turned to face the audience. He wore his hair in a wide, black afro and dressed in casual clothes, not helping me decide whether he was a fellow student or professor. In any case, when he started talking, his sophisticated vocabulary and well-practiced speaking voice let me know that he was used to speaking in front of groups about issues that he supported. He introduced himself. Let’s call him Brian Miller.

Miller explained the focus of the movie. He discussed how students have to use their “white voice” when they speak with their professors.

At this, I squirmed in my seat. I spend lots of time in my English classroom teaching students how to speak and write in Standard English. I explain that they will have to use formal language in the workplace, and that they will be more successful when they attain a command of it. I preach that the acquirement of this language is empowerment.

I also inform them that, once they learn the mechanics of formal English, they will be able to purposefully adapt the language to suit different writing and speaking purposes. While speaking, they can employ a short sentence to give listeners time to think. When writing fiction, they can utilize fragments to create emotions or visual impressions.

But here, this person was inferring that the formal language I teach is not only “white,” but also oppressive. That what I teach in my classroom is a form of domination that subjugates people to conform to those in power, and those in power are the “whites.” I wasn’t sure I belonged in this room, being an English professor and white, but I wasn’t willing to miss learning about how an African American film director was going to portray the white culture. I wanted to know and try to understand, so I stayed deep in my chair.

One scene in the movie showed the CEO of Worry-Free Company surrounded by scantily clad women who fawned all over him. Another scene showed naked women having sex with naked men at a company party. I was certainly offended at the misogyny of the scenes, and commented about it to Carol. My first thought is that people are more concerned about equality amongst the races than they are amongst the genders. Troublesome. A uniquely American issue that continues to plague our whole society.

At the end of the film, Miller asked the audience to rate the film from 1 to 5, with 5 being the best. Most people rated it as a 3 or 4 as Carol did. I didn’t even raise my hand. The film was such an in-my-face opinion about the culture that I represented that I couldn’t even decide what to think.

What could I learn from this Avant Garde criticism of America set in Oakland, California? As I drove home from campus, dodging the headlights of dozens of cars whirling around me, my heart fluttered like a moth burned by the heat of a lightbulb.

Why would this director claim that capitalism was “white” culture? Because the white Europeans colonized the Africans in order to rob them of their land’s natural resources such as rubber and diamonds. Because the English aristocrats, who profited from the Caribbean plantations, left the sin of slavery behind when they went back to England to live in their mansions and estates. Because American plantation owners treated the slaves like they were savages and erased their African roots by converting them into Christians and partial human beings. Because African Americans have never felt like the benefactors of the capitalist system. They have slaved before and after the Emancipation without profit and, for hundreds of years now, have been robbed of their human dignity.

When I got home, two new volumes of African American literature were waiting for me on my doorstep. I recently had ordered them from Norton. As I sat at the kitchen table in the hallowed light of the room, I read the Table of Contents of each volume.

The first volume starts with the words of spirituals—religious songs sung by African Americans since the earliest days of slavery. As I followed the long list of songs, I recognized the name Brer Fox, but most of the words were not familiar. In the latter lists, I spotted Phillis Wheatley, a slave who was taught to read and write by her mistress, and W.E.B. Du Bois, and the Harlem Rennaissance poet Langston Hughes. Volume 11 covers literature up to the 2000 years, and I knew of Melvin Tolson, Gwendolyn Brooks, James Baldwin, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

But the lists of people I had never read was longer. The editors of the volumes are two African American professors from elite Eastern universities. Obviously, they have used their long literary careers studying the works of African American authors of all forms and styles. I never even heard of many like Bob Kaufman who wrote Jail Poems or Adrienne Kennedy who is still living and wrote Funnyhouse of a Negro.

I’m not surprised I don’t fully understand the perspective of Boots Riley and other African American writers like him; I have two disadvantages. For one, even though I have experienced discrimination and prejudice for being a woman, I have never worn the dress of an African American. Second, I have much, much more reading to do and more empathy to cultivate until I understand why Blacks distance themselves from me, from someone who wants to be their fellow citizen, but, first, who needs to qualify.

My Search for Cultural Humility

Maya Angelou wrote, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” This is the quote that will guide me through my search for cultural humility.

I was born white. Nobody asked me what color I wanted to be. I was just born this way: pale skin, toe-head blonde, pink fingers and toes. I was also born female. No one asked me what gender I preferred. Then, about a month after I was born, my parents even chose my religion; they had me baptized as a Catholic. These three conditions created my destiny, my opportunities, my struggles, my pains, and, for a long time, my opinions about people who were different than me.

I was raised in a white community: white neighbors, white church members, white school, white grocery stores. Both of my parents were white. All my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins were white. As far as I knew, everyone in the whole world had bleached skin.

When I was nine years old, my father—an Air Force sergeant—was transferred to England to serve there for four years. So, in the middle of my third grade, my large family of nine white children flew to England to live for four years. While there, we lived off-base in the English countryside and attended English Catholic schools. I can only remember white classmates, kids who looked even paler than I did.

In California, state history is taught in fourth grade, so I missed learning about the California missions, the Spanish colonialists, and the Gold Rush. I didn’t study about how the Franciscan priests converted the native Indians to Catholicism, made them work in the missions making wine and bread, watched them contract the white man’s diseases, and buried them in the mission cemeteries.

In seventh grade, California students study United States history, so I missed that too. While kids back home were studying about the Colonial times, I was learning about Anglos and Saxons settling the British Isles, William the Conqueror’s successful takeover of England in 1066, and the tumultuous and factious rule of several royal families like the Houses of Lancaster, Tudors, and Stuarts. I became fascinated with Elizabeth I, whose reign produced William Shakespeare. To me, she was a powerful, ingenious woman who used savvy strategies to maintain her hold on power and her queenship in a male-dominated world.

If my old friends in the U.S. studied anything about slavery, I didn’t at all. I leaned that the men from aristocratic families often sailed out of England due to business, but nobody ever talked about where they went, what decisions they made, what they saw, what they were responsible for, or how their wealth was produced.

My family lived in England from early 1966 to late 1969—important years in America: civil rights. I missed hearing about all of Martin Luther King Jr.’s marches, his speeches, what he was speaking for. On the day that Robert Kennedy was killed, Sister Genevieve asked me to stand up in front on the class and tell everyone else how I felt about his assassination. I didn’t know.

I never even heard about Martin Luther King’s assassination, and no one asked for my opinion when he died. An ignorant mind doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about right and wrong or concepts of equality and freedom.

I knew little about Black people except what I learned from the mouths of my parents. My father thought they were lazy. He told stories about the Black men in his unit who were supposed to work on the plane engines. He described how they sat around smoking cigarettes while the white men brought in the parts, organized the work spaces, and fixed the broken planes. The Black men smiled as they smoked, knowing they could get away with doing nothing.

My mother used the “N” word. Whenever she talked about Black people, she called them “N****s.” I knew that it was a derogatory term by the sneer that formed on her face when she said it. The tone of her voice emphasized the first syllable in a low guttural sound, and then let up on the second syllable like the backlash of a whip. One side of her lip curled up like she had just found a cockroach in the garbage can.

While we lived in base housing—a pastoral oasis with grazing cows and forested valleys—a Black family moved in next door to us. My parents reacted with quiet, stunned faces. One day when I was outside in the front yard, one of the boys from this family walked out onto their patch of front lawn. His skin was black, as dark of my father’s shoe polish. We looked at each other silently for several long minutes.

After noting his skin, I searched for his eyes—not black. In the English sun, they shone like deep, brown pearls floating in seas of white cream, friendly, wistful, inviting, tender. I softened in response, like a morning glory opening in the early light, and a wad of shame built up in the center of my chest for all of my preconceived notions.

Yet, this was only a first impression and short-lived. Soon, our family was on our way back to the United States and away from our next-door Black neighbors.

And so, I came back, enthralled with a love of English aristocracy and royal lineage and the literature that upheld their good and righteous glory. I believed in the goodness of Henry V as he protected the English throne on the edge of France. I believed in the moral purity of Elizabeth and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.

I never studied American history until I got to college. In high school, I studied World History in freshman year. No Black peoples or slavery interrupted my understanding of Egypt, Rome, Constantinople, or Napoleon. As a senior, I studied Civics, never learning about the constitutional amendments that finally allowed women and Blacks the right to vote freely, without literacy or taxation barriers.

In college, finally, I took American History from Colonial Days to 1877. 1877 was the end of the Reconstruction Period in the South. Did I understand the significance of ending Reconstruction? Absolutely not. Looking back, I wonder why the academic planners chose to end my history class right before Jim Crow took over the South.

So, I entered the world of adults, ready to work, vote, contribute, change, and mold my society with an incomplete understanding of the history and make-up of my country or the world. Little did I know that I would learn what discrimination meant, but from a female point of view. But, even with good intentions, I was ignorant of who my fellow Black brothers and sisters were and how they felt about themselves and me. My perspective was too white, too female, and too Catholic. My journey toward cultural humility was going to be a long one.

Baptism at Bridge River

A teeny church stood on a patch of earth next to the shore of the American River in Sacramento where the iron gables of the Fair Oaks Bridge arched its back from the north shore across to the south sandy bluff. One room with a polished, wooden floor and six stained glass windows; three high windows lined each side wall, inviting the glory of the sunrise in the morning and the grandeur of the sunset at night. In the sun’s ascent and descent, the stained glass filtered a rainbow of light into the single tall room, creating the impression that heaven hovered right outside.

Father McAlister, fresh out of a seminary in Ireland and already balding, said mass every weekday morning at 8 a.m. to a cluster of parishioners. McAlister named his parish St. Mel’s, after the nephew of Ireland’s patron, Saint Patrick. He told his parishioners that St. Mel came to Ireland in the fifth century with his uncle to convert pagans to Catholicism. Mel was the patron saint of the dioceses of Ardagh and Clonmacnois in Ireland, McAlister’s birthplace. As he preached, Father McAlister’s emotions drew deep, angry lines into his forehead, but when he clasped the hands of his parishioners, he smiled warmly, shook firmly.

In August, 1956, McAlister’s little church was only half-full on Sundays. But, by May, 1957, the seats were filled—fathers in suits, mothers in maternity dresses and lace veils, babies that squalled, and toddles that escaped from their parent’s clutches and teetered down the short center aisle. Little boys wore blue trousers and tiny buttoned shirts. Little girls twirled in skirts that gathered from their waists and bounced above their knees.

On summer Friday nights, parishioners gathered for potlucks on the nearby sandy shore of the steely blue river. Fathers carted their barbeques to the beach, on which they grilled steaks for the parents and hotdogs for the kids. Bowls of potato salad and coleslaw crowded the tops of folding tables along with steaming pots of baked beans, plastic bags of hot dog buns, and jars of yellow mustard. Parents set their woven folding chairs in circles to build fences around the toddlers that were attracted to the rolling current of the river.

Later, after the sun had inched its way down through the iron spokes of Fair Oaks Bridge and settled splendidly on the tips of the trees across the river, fathers took the older kids down to the water’s edge to teach them how to find flat stones on the bank and skitter them across the smoother parts of the water. The kids took off their shoes and waded in the shallow puddles of the shore. They fell and smeared their shorts with gritty mud that would eventually end up on the seats of the family cars. When the sun set and it was well past bedtime, reluctant parents packed their picnic supplies into the backs of their trucks and station wagons and took their broods home.

This church, this beach, this community was the perfect setting for a happy childhood.

Back at home, a girl child swam in the dark, warm ocean of her mother’s womb. She listened to the soft voice of her mother who used short sentences. Single words. Gentle instructions. Submissive answers. The girl child was excited to be in her womb and anxious to see her mother’s face. She swam and swam around the dark ocean for a long time, writing big dreams on the pages of her heart. She dreamed of dancing for hours in the sunlight and catching as many golden rays as she could carry in the crooks of her arms. She would speak and draw and teach and learn and listen to as many people as she could meet. Her dreams were long and joyous, endless, full of laughter, unlimited in imagination. In early May, after a thousand stories had filled this sweet heart about the future of her life, this baby girl was born and her parent named her Audrey.

By the end of Audrey’s third month, her parents stood in front of the altar at church with her and her two sisters. Her father held her. Her mother, her left arm in a sling, alternately patted the blonde heads of her sisters with her right hand.

Usually parishioners baptized their babies the Sunday after the mother and baby left the hospital. But, after Audrey’s mother had delivered, Audrey came home from the hospital while her mother stayed for another two weeks, healing from bursitis. Her father couldn’t take time off work to care for a new baby and two little toddlers so he asked the neighbors, Ed and Crème Hardy to take care of the new baby girl. Yvonne and Owen O’Neil, parishioners from church, took Audrey’s sisters.

Crème swaddled Audrey in blankets and placed her in a drawer in the living room so she could see her while she worked. She fed Audrey fresh goat’s milk from the ninny in her back yard. In between finishing the laundry, sweeping the floor, and baking bread, Crème rubbed Audrey’s belly and pulled her toes. She sang lullabies to her with a voice that chimed like a church bell.

When Audrey fell asleep in the mornings, Crème snuck out to the farm yard to feed the chickens and collect eggs. During the baby’s afternoon naps, she ironed her husband’s button down shirts and worked on a quilt for her own soon-to-be-born baby. But, after she cleaned up the dinner dishes, she took Audry into her arms and rocked her by the fire in an oak rocking chair, softened with deep red cushions. Audrey looked into Crème’s jade-green eyes and saw smiles. She cooed and gurgled while Crème told her stories about a beautiful, young girl who was admired for her intelligence and grace.

At the end of two weeks, when her father arrived to take her home, he roughly scooped Audrey out of Crème’s arms with his big, pancake hands. Audrey couldn’t breathe. All she could see were the walls whirling, the rocking chair getting smaller, the fire shivering like a frightened animal, her father’s face spinning around and around, making her dizzy, confused, and scared. He took her far away from Crème.

“I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” Father McAlister chanted as he poured the glass picture of holy water over Audrey’s head as her father held her over the baptismal font. The water was cold. It splashed on the little head and drizzled down the front of the baby girl’s face, over her eyes, down the sides of her nose. She squeezed her bluish-green eyes shut and pursed her mouth into crescent dimples. The baby girl didn’t cry, whimper, just held in her little puffs of breath until it was over.

Broken Bloom

Every baby girl born will have far to go. She doesn’t know this, of course, as she lies in her cradle and makes her first speech with sweet coos and babbles. And she will start at her beginning, like all baby girls. She will make mistakes as she tries to find her own direction, which will pull at her throughout her whole life until she discovers what her course is and then takes charge of it.

Because she is a girl, her potential will get crushed early on. Someone will tell her that she doesn’t have the right or authority to reach the same potential as a boy. And she will come to believe this so deeply and thoroughly that this limitation will become part of her personality. This belief will be the ink stain on her white blouse, the deep crease in a linen dress, and so woven into the fabric of her being that she’ll likely never distinguish between the nuances of her unlimited character and the poison that tells her that she is a lesser human being.

This is why it takes women decades to figure out what has held them back for the majority of their lives. They feel ashamed of being subordinated for so long, and so deeply shackled.

Based on this belief in her lack of power, she will make decisions. For example, she may decide that when she can’t find love, she is unlovable. When she feels unlovable, she will lose her self esteem in running the rest of her life since love, after all, determines self-worth. She will shake when she meets a new person at a party, or she will decide not to go to the party at all. No one would want to meet her anyway. At her job, she will perform like someone who is not important because how could she be important if she is not worthy of love? Accordingly, she will not be promoted and will be overlooked for more challenging positions.

When she graduates from high school, she may think that she has to choose either motherhood or college, not both. If she already has a child and she is not married to the father, she’ll struggle to support this child without a higher education, guaranteeing her a life of struggle and poverty. The fact that she had a child so early will make her feel like victim or a loser, some one who has no control over her life. So, she won’t ever have control over herself.

The woman who chooses motherhood, but is unlucky enough to be infertile, will break into a thousand pieces of sorrow and unresolved anguish. Not only is she not powerful enough to get a higher education, provide the income for a family, or lead a corporation, she also lacks the one power that a woman has traditionally called her own–the power to grow a child inside her, a potential so profound that inequality, discrimination, or misogyny have all failed to steal this role away from women. When a woman doesn’t even have this ability, she will feel as if she has nothing at all.

When a man treats her as only a sex object or demeans her sexually in any way, she will believe that she essentially plays the role of a prostitute, and that this is her major role in society. Even without labeling herself, unconsciously, she will treat herself as a trollop anyway. This belief will determine how she dresses, styles her hair, wears make up, and walks down the street. She will use her sexuality more than her intelligence to attract a man.

She will come to understand that she does not deserve to be paid as high as a man because she will agree that hiring her is risky since she may take time off to have a baby, showing her lack of commitment to her job. If she is a soccer player on the national professional soccer team, she will settle for lower prize money since women’s sports don’t bring in as much advertisement as men’s sports. After all, prize money must be determined by profits. Right?

And when she is spending all her time being the limited person that she has been told she is, she won’t get any closer to the woman that she can really become. She won’t figure out that she is a naturally gifted teacher who can transform or even save the lives of her students. She won’t dare to invent a drug that cures leukemia or challenge the male-dominated glass ceiling of corporations. She won’t recognize that she is a gifted artist who can paint philosophical lessons into her images to help her community heal from prejudice or other sins of society.

She’ll miss opportunities for better jobs, healthy relationships, and fulfilling activities. She’ll be blind to her full potential, and, if she never finds her power, she will live like a subordinated human being her whole life–never truly finding happiness, a joy that she could achieve by living her glorious, powerful, fully-blooming life.