Dear Enemy

Have any of you ever read a little book called Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster, grand-niece of Mark Twain? Or, perhaps more likely, have you seen the movie starring Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron?

No, you say?

Yeah, me neither.

But, the other day, I did happen to read the sequel to Daddy-Long-Legs, a lovely little epistolatory novel called Dear Enemy. Although the novel is somewhat blighted by a heavy focus on eugenics, I actually quite enjoyed Webster's style and her main character.

Dear Enemy is the story of a young woman named Sallie McBride who, as a new college graduate (yay women's movement--this novel was published in 1915), agrees to manage an asylum that is refuge to 113 orphans. The novel is a collection of her letters, mostly to her friend Judy (who is apparently the star of Daddy-Long-Legs), recounting her adventures in superintending the orphanage. In the course of a year of living and working at this orphanage, Sallie grows out of her frivolous society ways, drops her politician boyfriend, and becomes an independent New Woman.

All in all, I recommend it. It's fairly humorous and unsentimental for a story about orphans that contains frequent discussions of alcoholism and insanity and includes a scene with a baby in a burning building.

Really, it is.

Enjoy.

Gender roles according to a two year old

So, a few weeks ago, my sister and my two and a half year old niece, Audrey, visited me at work to have lunch with me in the cafeteria.

On their way to meet me, my sister pointed out to my niece the building she worked in before Audrey was born. She said, "Look, Audrey, this is where I used to work."

Audrey looked at her skeptically and replied, "Mommies don't work."

When my sister repeated this story to me over lunch, Audrey (overhearing) enthusiastically announced, "Yeah, my daddy goes to work!"

I asked her what her mommy did. The reply? "She stays home and plays with me."

Wanted: a nice man

"A woman should have the same chances in the professions as a man. But a woman's work about the house is never ending; the care of a child is the sweetest of professions; and that woman is neglectful of her best interests who goes out into the world to work when she can get a nice man to do the work for her."

--Sarah Grand (1854-1943), feminist activist

Oh, the gems you find when you're writing a paper titled "Women's Heads Weren't Made for Thinking"!