Celebrating women’s work

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I love waking up in the dark of early morning. Used to do it every day of my life when I worked, until the last decade or so after I moved to Chicago and couldn’t find any aerobic/step classes I liked at 6 am. Gradually began sleeping later, until now I consider myself a serious ‘bones because I sleep until 7, 7:30. I miss being out and about in the dark. Feels special to be up ahead of most of the city…

Woke up early this morning. Lying abed ruminating from 4:53 (according to my Fitbit sleep tracker function). Finally decided to get up at 6-ish (didn’t check the tracker or ask Alexa for the exact time). Lit my candles and settled in with my journal and my mini-flashlight. Not sure what journaling actually does for me/anyone. Sometimes it just feels like a boring recitation of what’s going on – the mundane stuff of life. But that’s part of what made the diary of Samel Pepys so compelling – his extraordinary attention to the little details. Anyway, it just feels good sometimes.

Discovered a program last night on PBS called Makers: Women Who Make America. All about women’s work in various fields. One episode covered women in comedy. Excellent! Didn’t realize that so many groundbreakers were in comedy: Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Roseanne Barr, Sarah Silverman, and so on. Another was on film/TV. The interview with Jane Fonda was powerful. How she grew in professional stature and in her ability to be in charge of her own content. To make movies about topics she truly cared about.

But my favorite part of that one was the interview with Marlo Thomas about the ending of her series, That Girl. She explained that all the (male) studio executives wanted her to end the series with a wedding to her long-time boyfriend on the show. She balked. They argued. She finally told them, look, ending this with a wedding sends the wrong message to all the young women/girls out there watching who are becoming convinced of the joy of being an independent woman. No, she said. There will be no wedding. In her final episode, That Girl took her boyfriend to a women’s liberation meeting.

Thanks, Marlo. And all you wonderful women who care enough to keep opening doors for all of us.


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