The Purse and the Rain Bonnet

I was recently invited to attend a purse auction to raise funds for a women’s group my friends participate in. It served as proof that I am far removed from the designer purse loop, as I had no idea as to the value of the particular brands of purses that were available.

As a teen, I was never one of those high maintenance, hogging the bathroom before school kind of girls. I’d rather sleep an additional fifteen minutes or finish another chapter in the book I was reading, and I seldom took the time to match my purse to my outfit. For me, the purpose of a purse is to carry my stuff, not to accessorize my wardrobe.

And what a load of stuff it is. A wallet, check book, gift cards, coupons, and assorted pens (either ten or zero, never a number in between). I must have access to my miniature journal, as I never know when I need to jot down a brilliant note that can lead to my next column. Add in the grandbaby’s teething ring, packs of tissues, keys, phone and various odds and ends, and I should be prepared for whatever the day brings.

My penchant for purse preparedness probably had its source in my Girl Scout years, but was definitely enhanced by my early television viewing. I loved to watch “Let’s Make a Deal,” especially towards the end when Monte Hall would go into the audience and offer a woman $50 if she could find a box of raisins or a battery in her pocketbook. I made elaborate plans in my ten-year-old imagination in case I ever got to be on the show, wanting to be sure to have the odds and ends that Monte paid for so dearly.

While my purse tends to be a repository for a variety of items, what I refuse to allow in its depths is the rain bonnet. Yes, you remember the rain bonnet – that flimsy piece of plastic that folded up like a map to fit in its own sleeve, an item that no woman of my mother’s generation would leave home without. When I was going through my mom’s purses after her death, the rain bonnet was the common item in them all. For my mother-in-law, the rain bonnet was a necessity because she got her hair “done” once a week. While my mother didn’t use those “comb-out” services, she still kept her rain bonnet handy, next to the scarf she wore on windy days.

When I look at my hands, I see it clearly: I am my mother. I carry her genetic make-up, I have some of her habits, I cook many of her recipes, but I draw the line at the rain bonnet. I’m guessing most of my baby-boomer sisters draw that line as well, for we are a product of a different world.

In our new world, women have left behind the rain bonnets, aprons and panty-girdles that defined their mothers’ lives. Women of the baby boomer generation have pushed against glass ceilings of all kinds, and managed to break most of them. And we’ve done so in a way that has provided some leveling of the playing field academically and professionally, as least in our country. The work is not finished, but, as Virginia Slims suggests, “we’ve come a long way, baby.”

Here’s the challenge. I’m not sure millennial women have a sense of where we’ve come from. Of the first female presidential candidate, Virginia Woodhill, who was not even allowed to vote in the election. Of the days when women couldn’t own property or were considered to be property.

This lack of understanding of feminist history was evident when Hillary Clinton was accused of playing the “woman card.” On one social media thread I was following, the younger women didn’t quite understand the importance the older responders placed on Clinton’s example in regards to gender. “It shouldn’t matter that she’s female,” a number of them implied. For good or for ill, we’ve birthed a generation of daughters who have never worn a rain bonnet. Perhaps it’s time to make some introductions so we don’t forget where we’ve come from.