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September 24, 2004
I’ve always been a
fairly normal person.
Growing up, I
helped my mother make biscuits, played flute in the band, did enough
homework to get good grades, and envied girls who made out a lot with
boys between classes.
Things didn’t
change when I entered Arizona State University (ASU) in 1969, over thirty years ago. Even though
I bought wire-rimmed glasses, let my hair go straight, and quit going
to church, I remained a fairly normal person. I still did my homework
and never found it worthwhile to cut classes. I changed majors twice,
hooked up with a boyfriend, and hung in there to the end, to
graduate.
So, it’s no
surprise that I have lived a fairly normal life for over thirty
years. Like most women I know, I balanced a marriage and raising two
children with full-time work as a teacher, a real estate saleswoman,
and an accountant.
Little did I know
that everything would change when I went back to Arizona State University in 2000.
It seemed a good
way to spend the Christmas break with my daughter. Together, we drove
to ASU, walked to and from classes, and spent two weeks buried in
notes and tests.
She learned the
basics of psychology. And me? I learned the basics of feminism in
women’s studies. My daughter warned me. “Don’t come whining to me,”
she scolded. “You’re choosing to do this yourself, so I don’t want to
hear you complaining.”
I was expecting a
few surprises to pop up here and there. After all, my own kids were
in college, and life has changed in thirty years.
Indeed, there were
little surprises in every class, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I
learned the distressing news that I was married to a patriarch and was
also raising a patriarch, my son. So sad. I had always considered
them the best of the new breed of man. Until women’s studies, I
didn’t know patriarchism was an unavoidable genetic trait.
I learned that
women still focused on their body types. Boy, was I glad to go to
college and gain this insight! Now I finally understood the
significance of having cheerleaders on Monday Night Football shaking
their cleavage at the camera. I just never could figure that one
out.
And I learned that
even after thirty years of feminism, it seemed still worthwhile to
discuss who should open the door for whom. Thankfully, the male
student sitting in front of me was just as mystified as I. “What’s
the problem,” he asked. “Who got there first?” For the rest of that
class period I kept imagining somewhere in America a little old hippie
lady and her hippie dude stuck in an elevator like Charlie on the MTA,
unable to get out because they didn’t know who should go first.
These were the
little surprises. But they were absolutely nothing when compared to
the big surprise, the mind-blowing news that I was no longer a fairly
normal person.
Imagine my surprise
the day my professor told the class my marriage license was nothing
more than a contractual exchange of sex for money. That little piece
of paper was my formal promise to give sex and my husband’s promise to
pay me for it? Licensed prostitution? I was a prostitute?
It was probably a
good thing the bell rang just before I was able to close my mouth and
open my eyes. In the entire semester’s study of marriage in a class
dedicated to issues of feminism, we spent five minutes reducing
marriage to a contract for prostitution. And that was the end of our
consideration of marriage in Women Studies 300.
Watching the
professor erase the board and stack her books, the immediate shock
wore off. I mulled things over. Too bad I didn’t know about this
prostitution deal back in 1970. Sure would have paid better than
teaching!
Following students
out of class, going down the stairs to meet my daughter, I couldn’t
wait to enlighten her. “Guess what I learned today?” I teased. She
raised her eyebrows to warn me. “I married your dad for money. He
married me for sex.” I laughed.
Like always, she
knew the perfect way to sum up two weeks of feminism. “Well, it
serves you right.”
Copyright © 2004 Jane Jimenez
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