Being Wrong Sometimes:

Did any of you ever have to change your mind about things you
previously thought was the right thing to do? I have. The other
night I was re-reading the biography on our dear old Founding Fathers, to refresh myself on some things (it had been a long time) since I had looked them over. They had a lot of different beliefs, religious, political ideas about how this country should be run. It took them a long time to make some decisions, change them and change them again, lots of arguments and duels to the death for a couple of them, one disappeared with out a trace and another poisoned, they think. Old Benjamin Franklin evidently didn’t believe in marriage, just fooling around. Several were single maybe they were, Gay. I don’t think all of them got together in a big room and sat down to talk about this big undertaking at one time. Frankly, they gave a finished product, but did not all agree. But it was the best they could do. Of course many of we the people weren’t important and were left out. It is still the same in our Government, only we the people are left out all together and the politicians think we work for them!

As I noted the different political affiliations, I started checking them out, but the one that held my interest, Nationalism: Devotion and loyalty to one’s own nation, patriotism. Excessive patriotism, chauvinism. The desire for national advancement or independence. The doctrine or policy of asserting the interests of a particular nation over the interests of other nations. (All was okay up to the last sentence, which has gotten us into a lot of trouble over the years).

But didn’t understand the chauvinism part. I couldn’t figure what it had to do with politics, as years ago when we women started asserting ourselves, and men objected to a lot of things we wanted too do, we called them all ‘CHAUVINISTIC PIGS’. It really sounded nasty as we spat it out, we didn’t say it to their face. I had never had the occasion nor inclination to look the word up (I do remember being told don’t say it unless you know what it means when I was young) I had not looked it up, and was just repeating what I had heard others say and it really seemed to suffice for the time. So I thought to myself, why was this word in the definition of Nationalism? So I figured at 83 I would just go to Webster’s and see what they had to say about the definition of this big word. (I do remember looking up some of those four letter words that I heard, but they weren’t in there, but are now—Webster’s needs to have it’s mouth washed out with soap).

CHAUVINISM: ZEALOUS AND AGGRESSIVE PATROITISM OR BLIND MILITARY ENTHUSIASM FOR MILITARY GLORY. BIASED DEVOTION TO ANY GROUP, ATTITUDE OR CAUSE. CHAUVINIST- CHAUVINISTIC.

Well in a way it did refer to men, certain men, the gung ho military type. Now I know where the beginning of the Radical Republican party began. (Napoleon had an officer in his army by the name of Chauvin that was really aggressive and patriotic). That one stupid word got me to thinking about being wrong about what you thought something meant, but actually we weren’t really wrong. Those chauvinistic pig guys did have a biased devotion to a group (all men) with an attitude toward women. We had no rights, we couldn’t do things as well as they did, we couldn’t be paid as much for the same job, we were the weaker sex (or so they thought), our thoughts about the work place weren’t important.

Mine did turn out to be, as I was the first woman elected to the Executive Committee with the fellows at my place of employment, I nearly resigned, as they were like boys on the school ground, arguing in lieu of discussing. When they find out you will assume responsibility for the functioning of the office, it really made it nice for them; if they all four wanted to leave town for some big function-‘hey Ev, it’s all yours’. Or when we had to put in a security system! Deciding whom would be on the to call list in case the alarm went off. They were out a lot at night, but me, I was always home at night. Guess who was on the list, me? I, was called, I strapped on my 38 took my dog and headed downtown Dallas in the middle of the night, got there before the police, checked out the three stories and was ready to reset the alarm when the police did arrive).

One thing for sure they never treated me as the weaker sex when I got to put my two-cents worth in and my salary went up, but they sure took advantage of the fact. You are never treated equal in many respects. At lunch once four of us were discussing equality. One said, ‘women will never be equal to men’, I told the little group I had always been equal to a man. They laughed. I told them I do everything in our office that they do and lots of things that they don’t, I put my pants on one leg at a time like they do. The only thing I don’t do is go to the men’s john and stand up when I tinkle, but I can remedy that, by inserting a catheter. All four looked and said, ‘you wouldn’t do that would you’? I told them not to dare me.

There are a lot of men in this world that the expression ‘Chauvinistic Pig’ still fits.