The Freedoms My Mother Never Had

And the ones we may lose.

I’m curious about my mom’s journey as a woman. I’m fascinated by where she was and what she was doing during different eras of her life. I wonder if she had access to the rights women have today (or the rights that were fully available prior to the current US administration in 2025), how life would have been different for her. If she would have been a little less angry. Maybe she would have been happier.

Maybe would have been a better woman.
A better mom.

My mom straddled an era of pre-women’s rights and the 1960’s and 1970’s when women were fighting so hard for equality. She had four children under 10 when women were reading Ms. Magazine and struggling to get access to birth control.

Born in 1938, she leaned towards the pre-women’s right era where access and freedoms were limited, and women disappeared behind their husband.

I straddled the two eras too. Patriarchal messaging and conditioning flooded my home and was in the air waves. I, however, lean more post-1974 women’s rights. I didn’t know a world without basic rights, even if equality, especially equal pay, was still a struggle. I knew no different.

Messages and Expectations

As a teen in the 1980’s, I saw professional women in their business suits (often with white sneakers) hurriedly making their way to their offices. 1988’s Working Girl showed smart ambitious women in the workplace. Making a difference. Being respected. (We won’t deep dive in the use of “girl” to infantilize women here). It thankfully offered an alternative to the typical dutiful wife trope or MTV vixen images of women during that era.

I had peak exposure to the “Oprah era.” For all its faults, verging on exploitation, wacky theories and platforming of dangerous men (Drs Phil and Oz)…