To celebrate International Women’s History Day, we went to see the movie “Cabrini” today, about St. Frances Xavier Cabrini. It’s very difficult to get my husband to leave the house, but, since he’s a devout Catholic, he agreed to see the movie. It was very well done and is playing this weekend at theaters around the country.
Frances Cabrini was an Italian nun who came to America to serve poor Italian immigrants in New York City. She went to a poor area called “Five Points,” where, in her opinion, “the rats lived better than the children.” She fought city hall, the Archdiocese of New York, and even the Pope. She ran into many roadblocks, simply because she was a woman.
The movie was well worth it–not preachy, not in-your-face religious, just the story of a woman who would not stop in her quest to help the poor. Society could learn a great lesson from her. When I worked in a long-term care association, several of our nursing homes were named in her honor. One still exists in Dobbs Ferry, New York.
International Women’s Day also always reminds me of the song, “Bread and Roses.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKEr5U8ERgc
This song came from a time when female textile workers who were trying to unionize at a time when wages were low and working conditions were horrible. Women said they wanted bread (as in higher wages) but they wanted to be treated well, so give “us bread and roses.”
When women work for equal rights and equal pay, some times it’s interpreted as women being selfish or “not knowing their place.”
What is a woman’s place, anyway?
My mother worked outside the home when I was a child in the 1950s. She was the only woman in our neighborhood who had a job that wasn’t a housewife. The mothers of all my friends were “homemakers”–women who stayed home with their children and didn’t have an outside job. My mother had a job in which she earned a salary but also had to come home and do the household chores that my friends’ mothers did on a daily basis. My father, a construction worker, often had to travel to find work. My mother had to have a job to make ends meet.
She was my role model. I never expected that when I had children, my life would be any different. It wasn’t. I needed a job to make ends meet as well when my children were young, even though my husband worked more than full time at his job. I had to take care of all the household chores in addition to working outside of the home.
From my perspective, we just did what had to be done. Just like Mother Cabrini.
Going back to the “bread and roses” of International Women’s Day: I want to applaud the women who went before us, the ones who had to walk picket lines, who were scorned, spat at, fired from their jobs, abused by their spouses, thrown out on the streets with nowhere to go, just so that women of my generation and generations to come, can succeed in fulfilling careers. (See my reference to St. Frances Cabrini, above.)
When I began college in 1966, women were only “allowed” to pursue education or nursing in most instances. And often, if they became pregnant, their careers were done. In the 1970s, as women of my generation began to fight for the Equal Rights Amendment (which never passed), careers for women began to expand. Women entered medical school, science, engineering, accounting–essentially whatever they chose. It doesn’t mean that, upon graduation, their lives were easy when they were looking for jobs.
Now, it’s not unusual to walk into a hospital and find a female physician. Women are becoming pilots, engineers, architects–you name it. But is it always a piece of cake for a woman to be hired? A woman in television broadcasting cannot gain weight or age in place; however, a man whose hair turns gray or gains weight is thought of as “distinguished” or “experienced.” His female counterparts must remain svelte and perky in order not to be sent to a “fat farm,” or, even worse, simply be fired.
Yes, we still face a double standard in life, even now in 2024. While career choices have expanded, it’s still often a fight: Sometimes a woman has to be twice as good at her craft to be hired instead of a man.
Women fought hard to earn the vote in this country to get the 19th Amendment to The Constitution passed in 1920. We continue to work for recognition and respect from the world. Essentially, we’re still looking for our bread and roses.
Nice piece Wanda. You are always sharing good information with us. Women have always had it tough when they need to be nurtured and cherished. We wouldn’t have life without women.
Thanks for another interesting history lesson.
Thanks, Shirley. I’m so afraid of the political world we’re living in. Several of my friends are making plans to leave the country. I’m too old for that. I think we have to keep educating people about our history and not repeat the mistakes we’ve made in the past. Discrimination based on the color of one’s skin or one’s gender is not advancing us but is pulling us back. But we have seen changes, and I won’t be silent as long as I can still speak!
🙂
Women AND people of color AND immigrants AND young people who were forced to go to work when they were too young to do so. I hope you can see that movie “Cabrini,” Shirley. It’s quite inspiring, especially with all the you-know-what that’s going on in this country today.
Hi, Wanda,
I like the way that you ended this article. The truth is that we are still looking for our bread and roses. That has not changed not only for women but for minorities. Something drastic has to happen for there to be a permanent change, and although I am a positive person, what’s needed is a heart change in people and not a head change. I don’t see that happening. You can change people’s ways of thinking, but you can’t change their hearts. And until the hearts of the people change, the change will be minimal.
I look forward to seeing the movie. I have it on my calendar.
This is a wonderful article. I loved it. It stimulates my thinking on a deeper level.
Have a lovely Saturday, and take care.
Shalom shalom
Hi Pat–You’re so right! I just listened to an interview with Joy Reid, who has released a book called “Medgar and Merlie,” about Medgar Evers and Merlin Evers. When Medgar was killed in their driveway, Merlie vowed to take up his mantle and continue the fight, despite all the threats she received from the KKK and other hate groups. I have to read that book now. I remember a lullaby someone (I can’t remember who) wrote for their children:
Bye, bye, my babies, I’ll sing you to sleep
Sing you a sad song, it might make you weep
Your daddy is dead and he’s not coming back
The reason they killed him–because he was Black…
Until the hearts of the people change, the change will be minimal. I fear we’re going backwards in so many ways. I just can’t give up.
Thank you for all you do.
Loved your piece Wanda. It reminds me the research I did for my first novel Figs, Vines and Roses. I found that women were not allowed to go to universities in the early 20th century. and the first women Drs. did not appear until the late 1930’s. How far the civilised world has come.
Thank you, Joy. The UK has quite a history of female suffragists. I watched a BBC documentary on that many years ago. I was blown away!
Thank you for telling us about the phrase and song “Bread and Roses.” I don’t remember hearing about it, and definitely not at school.
No, I didn’t hear about it in school, either. I was once an editorial assistant for a woman whose husband was putting together a book about the women who worked in the Amoskeag Mills in New Hampshire. He discovered so many old GLASS negatives of those women. I learned a lot from that piece of history. It was the same at the Lowell mills in Massachusetts. Many of those young women were from French Canada, and they were badly taken advantage of by the mill owners. That’s when I first heard about “Bread and Roses,” and then some folk singers in the 1960s glommed onto the song.
Hi, Wanda,
What a great article! We’ve come a long way since the early part of the last century, but we have a way to go, yet. Thanks for the history and for your well-thought-out concerns. I look forward to seeing “Cabrini.”
Blessings,
Patty