women
yeah the changing roles of women how roles changed and what do you see coming in the future
oh okay that's not a broad enough topic
okay yeah sounds good
i'm ready when you are
okay hold on
okay
are you there oh my goodness i can't believe i did that okay hold on
yep i'm here
uh that's okay
okay
um
okay um i don't know are you in your thirties or do you
no i i'm twenty three
oh okay well then i can tell you that roles have changed i'm thirty eight and they've changed quite a bit um
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um-hum uh-huh
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i this was my twentieth high school reunion in Chicago and basically um
uh-huh
the choices i mean you know you probably heard that in the fifties women liked to stay home and all that that's kind of um the opposite of what it was in the sixties and early seventies it was sort of just to um go protest and uh
right uh-huh
right
just everybody be damned and live with someone and you know social social morals were a little bit lacking
oh i know that uh
um-hum i know that uh in in the early seventies uh i think women were the first people to to make a move as far as individuals
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um uh before that a lot of people that wanted to protest were large groups like uh Black people or you know just large large groups of people but but the
right it was more it was more civil rights oriented or race oriented rather than gender based yeah
right
and i think i think the women's movement kind of brought in individual lives where you had women's movements and you had gay movements and just the smaller groups of people and i think since then is is when a lot of the women's roles were started to change
um-hum
it did
it did and some of the other stuff that um i think that changed it you uh when i first got out of college fifteen years ago they were always saying well if you if you were assertive you were a libber or you were aggressive not assertive and independent and
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in terms of the corporate community i've seen a big change in terms of men finally being quote unquote used to women who are in uh controlling positions as higher you know corporate in the corporate hierarchy so i think that's good
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exactly
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i think that uh you know you can just look at home life and see i've been talking a lot of people about education and things and and what what what affects the school system and i think that a big thing that affects it is that the mother is not home anymore
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right
um like she used to be she used to be kind of kind of a a rock you know in the house yeah and uh since since everyone
the mainstay yeah
going out and working now whether it be because of finances or just the economy uh the mother's not there anymore and the children are i think i think a lot of society is suffering not to say that women shouldn't
and restructuring stuff families yeah
you know go out and do what they want to do but i think that um society's going to really have to get used to it and they're not quite used to it yet and that's i
right
the schools or the moms the schools or the parents yeah
yes uh-huh
um i'm trying to think of what else i have a lot of opinions on this except all of a sudden i went blank
a lot of the things um the demographics too i mean there's more i don't have the numbers in my head right now but a lot of the things that brought feminism i mean there are just more women in in in the demographics just generally in the United States in terms of being
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right um-hum
i mean i'm the typical baby boomer i hate that term but in terms of women women going out i mean twenty three i remember that
uh-huh yeah
what's it like to be twenty three as a woman today i mean when i was twenty three the issues were either go to graduate school or get married um those were the general issues
speaking of getting married i was talking to someone yesterday on this on the project and uh uh we were talking about child care and he asked me if i had any kids he was about forty or fifty years old and i said no i'm just twenty and i said no i'm just twenty three
uh-huh
he was ancient yeah
uh-huh
you know because i don't think of myself as needing to have children but the the first thing he says is well don't you miss that part of your life
and i just i my my mind just went i went what you know because it didn't it really didn't doesn't even occur to me right now to have children because
you didn't know what was there to be missing
i don't have any either and i've been a married for eleven years so huh
yeah and it it just you know i think that i'll probably have children when i'm about thirty thirty five something like just because i'm not sure if it's just if it's just me or or women in general that are twenty three right now because um
yeah when it's time um-hum
i'm really into my career i'm trying to go somewhere
yeah you want to establish
and and get there quick and then worry about you know because right now in my career i'm i'm really starting out and it's going to take me a while to move up and i don't need anything kind of holding me back um
um-hum
right and and you'll find that that's the other big thing that has changed in terms of um women don't feel like they need to get married anymore i was twenty seven when i got married and i just at the time um my husband actually even jokes about it
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right uh-huh
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he was twenty three when we met and i was at a point where it was like i didn't date i mean i just i went out to have a good time but i didn't have to have male companionship um and a lot of the um
right
right right
friends that i had in school at that point who had gone back and gone to law school or MBA programs um which i also had done had just you know they were very sad but then by the time i got married um it seemed like they were on their second or third around the marriage track
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yeah yeah
so i guess that's a big change in terms of just um the attachments that women feel like they need to have the dependency their self-identity is stronger yeah
yeah yeah it's it's just really not there anymore and that that has to do with you know the women getting out and other women seeing women seeing other women you know out in the corporate world that's like oh i can do that you know maybe i don't need to get married
right
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right and i i i mean i don't know how how old your mom is she's probably let's see my mother's in her early sixties so
she's about forty um-hum
okay i'm thirty eight your mother's forty i just turned thirty eight um yes i'm laughing oh my God it does start to creep up no um but it's okay don't ever let age i mean i don't think
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okay
nobody talks about it for women except other women and other men
i i just turned twenty three uh April twentieth and i'm still going you know oh my God i'm getting so old i just because me myself i just like to move really really quickly
uh-huh
yeah and
i like to anything i do i got out of school quick i'm you know i'm working quick i want to move up quick i want to make money quick i want to retire quick and so anything
um-hum
yeah
when when the age creeps up where i'm twenty three and twenty four i'm thinking my time is running out you know but i'm actually very very young
yeah you are because what i was going to say is what you'll find is my background is in journalism and corporate communications and what you'll find is i mean i'm just now
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finally to a point where i mean i don't know why i didn't didn't do it sooner but this is probably typical of the women's movement too the idea that you're going to be forty tomorrow anyway if you want to go back to school i'm seriously considering going back to school for law
um
um which is a complete i wouldn't say career change it's it's a but it's still is a different application and i mean if you think about it
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you know i can i still can have another career i mean i've worked for over fifteen years in what i've done and i mean so when you're saying quick um i think that's probably one thing that your generation coming up after mine is thinking that um
yeah yeah
they have to do everything you know sort of i call kind of i call it a chewing syndrome they have to eat real fast they have they have to rapidity of speech they have to just go through everything
right
uh-huh
exactly
exactly
and you'll find that probably by the time you're twenty eight thirty if you haven't slowed down something will slow you down do you know what i'm saying um because it's just you find out that you're really not um smelling the roses and i know that sounds trite and all that
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yeah yeah
yeah i think i think a lot of uh people probably feeling that way i know i'm probably feeling that way because it's everything's geared towards young
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you know and whether i want to realize it or not everything on television is young young young young you can't be a model after thirty you can't do this after twenty you know and every everybody that's in the music business is starting out at fifteen
oh it is
that's right
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you know and so i feel like i'm old it's like i sing i sing and i would really love to become
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uh a professional singer but i think i'm too old now and i'm twenty three because everyone i've seen coming up they're fifteen
oh you're not no
no
it's true i mean it's it's
you know and so i'm going i'm so old and i'm i i really have to always tell myself no you're not you're very young and you know so it's
no you're extremely yeah it's it's just well it's like us we're getting ready to do if possible for an adoption and i have friends that say well why would you do that if you know you haven't been able to children which we do know why would you do that now at this part point and um
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it's just individual choices i stopped comparing myself a long time ago to somebody who had um in my family my brother's children i mean he just turned forty his children will be out of high school before he's forty five um
yeah
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wow
um i mean that's like your mother look how young she is compared to where you are out of school and everything it's just it but what you find is you don't compare the woman because you just get into trouble it's all independent and choices
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right
um-hum yeah very true
um but what i was going to say about mothers is uh your mother probably just won't say it but i mean my mother and her sisters are always saying uh to my cousins and i my female cousins
you girls are so lucky because quote unquote you have all these choices you know you went to school you can do this you can do that we couldn't do that then and my cousins and i go well why couldn't you and they
right um-hum
yeah that's that's why i say i feel i feel really lucky right now because because i'm not married and because i don't have children i'm out of school i'm twenty three i can do
anything i want to do anything and so i mean even some days i'm looking for another job now but and i get so depressed because not because i can't find a job but because i can't figure out what i want to do
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and that's normal i mean i think that's the world today
and yeah and i feel
and i'm lucky though because not a lot of people can sit there and go gee i don't know what to do i have so much you know not a lot of people but it's depressing too what do you what do you do that you're uh-huh
right
that's exactly yeah
that's how i mean
what i'm right now i'm i'm a freelance writer right now and then um what i'm doing is
oh
working at um a electronics an electronics company for their company newspaper right now on the side and then i'm also actually i'm excited tomorrow i have a um
hum
oh
luncheon appointment with a prospective client to do um marketing communications for them
hum
hum okay i'm a i'm a news reporter now and what i'm looking for is something in i really don't want to stay in news but i would like to stay in journalism and i've been looking for something exactly like that just um-hum
so we
oh you are
what
here's what you should do this is off the topic and these people probably won't did you go to Baylor by any chance
okay
no i don't i went to UT at Austin and i i just happen to work at a Waco station because you know
oh okay that's even better
i went to are you in radio or television or news
broadcast broadcast news uh-huh TV
uh my journalism degree is in
