Assessment of gender dynamics in the United States
Although Lorie abhors the labor of victim, she contends that white male patriarchy permeates throughout American society. She describes a telling incident with her brother who admitted his surprise of her intelligence. Nevertheless, Lorie concedes that gender relations have gradually improved.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Barbara Lorie, February 26, 2001. Interview K-0211. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- BARBARA LORIE:
-
It's so hard for me to talk about the Women's
Movement, because my life - I refuse to look at myself as a victim. But
I was victimized by the legal system - my whole
life has been saturated with patriarchy. I see it today. All you need to
do is go to Raleigh and sit in on the legislature. Okay,
that's all you need to do. Go sit in there and listen to
those windbags talk about making the laws for the people of this state.
And you know, fifty percent of the people of this state
aren't represented by those windbags. All you need to do is
listen to some of the windbags on the UNC campus. All you need to do is
go into some of those old-timey professors and listen to them talk, and
you want to puke! You want to just puke because they haven't
got it. They haven't got the message, they don't
understand about women. They don't understand why we feel
like we were enslaved also, and of course we were slaves! We were slaves
of a different kind than the black slaves were working in the cotton
fields. I try very hard not to go there, not to go to this place of
anger that I have towards men. Because my anger is so huge. My own
family - my father was, you know, we bowed down to him. My brothers
were, we bowed down to them. And my sisters and I, we barely - we were
supposed to go to college to get married and that was it. None of us
were supposed to show any signs of brains or whatever. I will never
forget my brother who was the professor, my other brother was a medical
doctor, surgeon of course… and my brother, Charles, who is a
famous professor - was, he's retired now - written all kinds
of books, he was a Classical blah blah wancho, Greek and Latin scholar
stuff. He was down here giving an address at the university. One of the
significant issues in my own personal life was that my family never
helped me when I needed it. I came from a family of some means. Because
I got divorced, and because there was a stigma there. I just had a very
very rough time. A very very very very rough
time. I was always one minute away from the street, and I will never
forget that my family didn't help me. Finally I was a
teacher, and my brother, Charles, came down to lecture here, and I
hadn't seen him. When my husband committed suicide, my family
didn't show up here. I didn't have any telephone
calls or, "Gee, what's going on," or
"Sorry." But my brother was here, and of course, I was
still enamored of him as being my brother the big professor. So he came
out to cook dinner for me and my children. We lived in a very tiny
house, about a thousand square feet; it was just really a hovel. When he
was cooking dinner and pontificating, finally we were having this
argument about some theological question. I can't even
remember what it was, maybe existential something. And all of a sudden
he stopped, and he turned around and said, "Really, you know
you're quite bright." Then he went back to stirring
and you know. I remember that vividly. But anyway, I can hardly talk
about the women's movement - it's been so powerful
in my life, and I'm so grateful that even though it was at
the end of my life, I was able to witness that women are coming into
their own. They aren't anywhere near there yet, not at all.
But I'm so grateful that I live in this community. And all of
the men in this community I love, and have tremendous respect for, They
are gentle, loving, caring men who understand women's issues,
and who are devoted to women in a way… I never met a man like
that, you know, I never had a man in my life like that.
That's for sure. So, things are changing, and
they're raising their children, these men are raising their
children in a totally different way than from how you were raised, even
you probably, were not raised the way these children are being
raised. So there are changes, there's
great hope. There is such hope. I am so proud of the women I see out
there doing what they're doing. My heart just opens up, and I
am passionately loving of these women going out and standing up for
their rights.