Little Boy, Little Girl

Dear Diary,

This is a photograph of me and my brother.  I was about seven I'd say and I remember that blue plaid dress vividly.  We were dressed to go on a Cub Scout outing to the fire station in town.  Since my dad was the scout leader I got to go and I was thrilled.

Once there, however, I learned my first lesson about girls and boys.  The boys were allowed to slide down the fire pole but as a little girl in a dress I was not allowed.  I was hugely disappointed but I didn't say so.

Later, in junior high school, my guidance counselor asked what I wanted to do when I grew up and I said I wanted to be an illustrator for Walt Disney.  She looked into it and told me I couldn't...Disney didn't hire women!  Oh well, I said.

In high school I loved drawing floor plans and had a notion that I might want to study architecture.  Nix that one too.  My math skills were abysmal said my teacher and I'd never get into a school of architecture besides, he said, few women were architects...it was a "man's job".

Fortunately, I did find the perfect career for me, an art teacher.  I loved it for more than 35 years but remembering these incidents makes me glad that little girls don't face that kind of obstructionism anymore.  Such a different world I grew up in.  So much better in some ways and so much worse in others.