I know a little bit about feminism. I was raised by a feminist. My mother went back, at age 45, to get her Master’s degree at Columbia University at a time when a minority of women even went to college. She was a feminist in the days of Gloria Steinham, Betty Friedan, and Germaine Greer.
My mother and the other feminists of her era joked that they burned their bras while still wearing them. Talk about tough. These were the days of real glass ceilings, real feminist concerns. Nowadays, feminism often complains mostly about men saying things women don’t like. The freedom that women currently enjoy was earned by such as Eleanor Garvin.
Feminists routinely criticize Christian husbands. This started well before the frenzy about the Promise Keepers, an organization that encourages men to return to the values of home and family. The feminists maintain that this group, indeed all Christian men, seek to subjugate women in a restrictive, intolerant marriage. By extension, they are critical of the Christian wife who would submit to such a tyranny. They must not have met my wife, Nancy.
When I met Nancy many years ago, my only absolute requirement was that the woman I would marry be a person of faith. As it turned out, Nancy had the same absolute requirement. I was a little hesitant to ask her out, for two reasons. First, with her pretty face and adorable figure, I thought she was too young for me (she still looks that way). She reassured me that I was not robbing the cradle, but she was robbing the Nursing Home.
My primary hesitancy, however, was that both of us were adults with braces on our teeth and I was worried that we might show up in the Emergency Room, our wires locked together like two rutting caribou with tangled antlers. Thankfully, despite many kisses, that didn’t happen.
Nancy charmed me in a number of ways. I had been a longtime Alabama football fan and she is an Alabama graduate and native of Dothan, Alabama. I thought I would have someone who would watch Crimson Tide football with me.
I was wrong. She would fidget like an over-caffeinated gerbil and could only sit with me when we were ahead by more than one touchdown. Until then, I had to lock her in the closet. The second way she charmed me was by her philosophy that anything broken could be mended with duct tape.
Her major charm, however, was that she could trailer my bass boat better than I could. One time, we were fishing on the York River. We came across some heavy waves and set the anchor. Nancy immediately pulled up a huge, citation croaker. We cheered, than noticed that we were sinking.
The boat plug had gotten bumped out coming across the choppy water. We upped the anchor in great haste and got the boat up on plane and moving well, which began sucking the water out. I dropped Nancy at the dock and kept driving the boat around in circles. If I stopped, it would begin to sink again. She ran up to my truck and I watched as she backed the empty trailer (an empty trailer is harder to handle than a loaded trailer) down a long stretch between other vehicles faster than I ever could, never jackknifed or had to stop. She put the trailer in the water and I drove the boat on and she pulled us out of the water. I thanked her for saving my boat and she said, “To heck with your boat, my fish was still in your live well.”
Although petite, Nancy was freakishly strong. When we moved up to Roanoke, she and I loaded and unloaded all our furniture by ourselves, including heavy upstairs furniture. It didn’t matter which of us was on the downstairs side; she could lift as well as I. As a result, however, of having muscles capable of lifting weight that her frame could not support, she began to have the same injuries suffered by male athletes. Injury, not attitude, forced her to slow down. Now, she is merely as strong as a woman half her age.
Nancy is resolute. One time, for my birthday, she picked me up at the office in a full sized RV (never having driven one) and drove it up to West Virginia while I slept in the bed. The only problem we had with that RV was when I drove it. Nancy thought nothing of renting a car carrier and hooking it to her SUV so she could haul a car from Alabama to Virginia.
If something needs to be done, Nancy doesn’t give me the ‘helpless female’ routine. She gets it done. We went to a course in Pennsylvania about using a lathe to create bowls our of green wood. No other women present. Nancy’s bowl got the best review.
Nancy was raised by a woman whose husband had died at age 40. This woman raised four daughters and one son by herself in the Deep South with a modest education in an era when job opportunities for women were few. She maintained her womanhood throughout and passed it on to her daughters. Nancy is a steel magnolia who was raised by a steel magnolia. She is a woman of deep faith, abiding femininity, and the courage of a Navy SEAL. She is an anesthetist, wife, mother, sister, grandmother, and friend.
I can’t predict how Nancy would react if confronted by a feminist. She is too polite to punch their lights out. I imagine she would either laugh at them or ignore them. The truth is, Nancy is too busy being a woman to worry about feminism.
– Dennis Garvin
