[Search for users] [Overall Top Noters] [List of all Conferences] [Download this site]

Conference turris::womannotes-v3

Title:Topics of Interest to Women
Notice:V3 is closed. TURRIS::WOMANNOTES-V5 is open.
Moderator:REGENT::BROOMHEAD
Created:Thu Jan 30 1986
Last Modified:Fri Jun 30 1995
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1078
Total number of notes:52352

150.0. "Women: Leading minds and hearts" by AKOFIN::MACMILLAN () Wed May 23 1990 12:57

	There are women living in our minds and hearts. We picked them up
over the years of our lives and to some of us they became resources to
help us through troubled, turbulent times. Not all of these women were people
we actually knew, some were depicted for us in books, movies or other medium.
Some indeed were real in the sense that we actually knew them and bore witness
to their specialness. Some were even fantasies with no less the ability to
shore us up with their finer human qualities when we needed them (there is
power in myth).

	Were there women who greatly influenced your life? They could have been
depicted, actually known or otherwise; doesn't matter if they had a real
impact on you.

	Tell me where does your courage and compassion come from? Are there
women shining like beacons to these resources in your psyche? There are many
in mine.

	-D-


T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
150.1Teacher...AKOFIN::MACMILLANWed May 23 1990 12:5818
	Anne Sullivan, Helen Kellers teacher, lives in my mind. She is
an image pointing me to courage, compassion and loving discipline. When
I think teacher, in its most loving connotations, I think of Anne Sullivan.

	I met Anne when I was about nine or ten years old. My mother took me
to see the movie "The Miracle Worker"; I was transformed and never to be the
same again. from that time on I had a whole new frame of reference from which 
to look at women. I looked upon my own mother and her attempts to lovingly
discipline and teach me in a very new, more appreciative way. The total
clarity or insightfulness didn't occur overnight, it was a process growing
over time, catalyzed by the depiction of Anne Sullivan.

	Now I'm a father who draws on resources to provide that discipline
with love and compassion that my children and all children need. At the 
center of those resources, living in my mind and heart, Anne Sullivan.


	-D-
150.2My MOTHERDUGGAN::MAHONEYWed May 23 1990 16:056
    My own mother.  She passed away about 15 years ago but there's not a
    single day that comes and goes without found memories of her... her
    great sense of humor, her laughter, her fine insight and knowledge of
    our most inner thoughts and wants... Grandma is, and always was, a role
    model for all of us to learn from.  She loved us dearly, and I honestly
    try to give to my own children some of what she always gave us...
150.3A WOman Who Does Her Best Every DayUSCTR2::DONOVANcutsie phrase or words of wisdomFri May 25 1990 04:2010
    Things my mother taught me:
    
    * Try to be honest.
    * Don't judge a book by it's cover.
    * Take your time and do it right.
    * Love is important
    * Never let yourself be a victim.
    * Strength and sensitivity are not mutually exclusive.
    
    Kate
150.4Kate Hepburn and MomSTAR::BARTHWed May 30 1990 19:5312
    Kate Hepburn was a good role model for me when I was growing up.  When
    most of the strong, independent role models were men, and the women in 
    the media were dependent caretakers, I saw Hepburn as a shining star.  
    She always seemed to be herself.  She dressed, acted, and WAS who she 
    wanted to be and without her I might have thought being a woman was a 
    total wash.
    
    My mother was also a good role model.  She had her own career, and
    like Hepburn, didn't buy into a lot of the cultural stereotypes that
    I found so confining.
    
    Karen.
150.5Moms the most special influenceAKOFIN::MACMILLANThu May 31 1990 15:0521
	Yes, mothers own predominant space in minds and hearts. They are
determinant in so many ways. For most of us they were our earliest memories
of warmth, love, compassion, security...they told us on that level below
the words who we were...and for many of us who we were to be.

	When my mind is tuned to the gentler voices of my past, there's my
Mom. Just thinking on those early times: her reading and singing to me, 
drawing Bugs Bunny cartoons, Taking me to the movies on Market street, the
first really caring person I knew in my life, all these images and the like
keeping me in touch with my humanness, the best in me. She was really my only
parental role model. My kids have no idea that their loving father learned it
from his loving mother.

	The preceding descriptions of mothers are very apt for this string.
I was hoping to elicit positive voices showing how women greatly influence
lives by being role models. Mothers must have the top shelf in this vein.
They always have and probably always will.

-D-