Bandit Queen, Politician

In 1959 Harvard University Press published a book called Century of Struggle by Eleanor Flexner.  It chronicled the American Woman's Suffrage movement with style, grace and hard academic grounding. Eleanor Flexner wrote her book at a time when few women were "concerned with the discrepancies existing between what men and women were paid, the small number of women in political life or public office and the actual decline of their number in the areas of scholarship, education, or business".  Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique would not appear for four years.

Flexner wrote a lively AND rigorously researched history of American Women's struggle for equality.  And she did it at a time when most people couldn't be pulled away from their post-war prosperity to notice.  Her book is essential for a good understanding of a more inclusive American history, but it's the bold implication of this book that makes this history text historical.

For arguably the first time in American academia, someone of skill and talent proved that women were worth studying.  Not as the victims of hysteria or other psychological deviance, but as contributors to our country.  As builders and shapers of our nation.  For the first time we existed not as "lone nuts" who compromised femininity to compete with men.  Century of Struggle makes it very clear that significant women were not the exception--they were the rule.  Many women worked for suffrage and before that abolition of slavery, and before that, American independence. 

Flexner did produce other work, including ''Mary Wollstonecraft: A Biography'', published in 1972 and nominated for a National Book Award.  Her biography of the influential Romantic author and philosopher is still considered the standard, but I think Century of Struggle will always stand out as the most significant.  Her legacy was proving that women had something to say, that they would always have something to say because they always have.

I wish I had read Century of Struggle in High School because when I got to college I had a history professor teaching a mandatory course on "World Civilizations" tell me that "Until recently women have not done anything of historical significance."  Now I would laugh and tell him that he is a piss poor scholar if he thinks that's true.  Women have been doing significant things since civilization began between the Tigris and Euphrates, and good scholars know that.  Eleanor Flexner knew that.

Jessica Mitford was an amazing woman. She's been gone from our physical earth for about seven years now, but she really changed my life in many ways.

Right out of high school, I worked in a mortuary. Many cities feature "funeral homes", which are small family-run businesses in which the family usually resides in the same building that they do funeral services, embalming and body preparation, and other business, in. I worked for a large corporation - it was the largest funeral business in the huge southern California city I lived in. It was also owned by a large corporation that held mortuaries like ours nationwide - basically, it was the Exxon of funeral homes.

Working for a mortuary opened my eyes to death. To our bizarre culture and the way we approach death and the way we treat death. We are so afraid of death. In some ways, with our more Christian history, you'd think we'd be almost giddy at the prospect of death - going to meet our maker, so to speak. But, no, Americans want death to be tidy and neat and fit nicely into an expensive, shiny casket.

I saw many families with little or no money go deep in debt over funerals. Over "air tight" caskets. Over mahogany caskets. Over large services with flowers. Over placing their loved ones in mausoleums (our grounds featured the world's largest indoor mausoleum with four floors - and still more adding on!). It was a weird place to work. I did make up. I did death certificates. Obtained burial permits.

Jessica Mitford is probably best known for her book The American Way of Death. This stellar piece of critical journalism was re-released recently as a revised book. I cannot recommend this book enough to everyone - it is to the funeral industry what Suzanne Arms' Immaculate Deception was to the birth industry.

Ms. Mitford, or Decca, as she was called, also wrote a fabulous book called The American Way of Birth. I wish that this book was revised and reprinted, but you can pick up a used copy most places. The sad thing is, most of the information in her Birth book still stands. Not much has changed since its original publication in 1992.

Both books changed my life in so many ways. Her Death book made me acutely aware that there HAD to be an "alternative" to those high-cost funerals. Since reading her book, I've researched green funerals - do-it-yourself funerals for people opposed to the high price and unnecessary addition to grief that some in the funeral industry bestow. I am now more convinced than ever that I do NOT want to die in a hospital unless absolutely necessary, and I do NOT want to spend a minute in a funeral home's refridgerator or be embalmed and placed in a nylon-lined casket. I thank her for opening my eyes and pushing me to find alternatives. (The Funeral Consumers Alliance is the best, most kick-ass reference for anyone planning a funeral!!! Here are some other great links to death information and healing our perspectives and attitudes about death and dying...)

Not that I plan on dying anytime soon, but I just don't want my family and loved ones spending good money for something that is worthless and not a reflection of how I lived my life.

Her American Way of Birth is a great read for those wishing to expand their knowledge about how we as Americans approach birth - and what changes are being made to shift the views.

Some things in my life have brought her back into my awareness again - mainly that a prospective client and her partner are morticians. I feel perfectly comfortable with the funeral industry as a whole, as I feel they offer what people want - it's really the consumers that need to shift the awareness. But, my views on traditional funerals are pretty negative. I won't mention to them how I feel about this at all - after all, do I discuss politics with my conservative clients? Still, I have been thinking about how far I've come from the 19 year old that worked in the large mortuary, applying green eyeshadow to someone's gramma...well, the shell of someone's gramma. Talking to her while I did it, coloring her hair a shade that she probably didn't have in the past twenty years (people brought in old pics and said, "make her look like this"....). Wow. I'm a bit stunned at the transformation in my life - and alot of it is due to Decca.

Thank you, Decca. :)