"I had to find a cobbler to make my shoes with no heel to get caught in the bricks of the street. They did not make shoes for women who worked: only heels or leather sandals. That was all you could have."
"There was a special tailor, he would make pockets inside my dresses because the stores only sold dresses for women. Nothing for women who worked. He made me small jackets to wear over my dresses, and in them, I could have my pockets."
"A woman could not go alone into a café. I made my own money, for food for my family, but I could not go in to sit to have a coffee on my way home after work."
"There was a special tailor, he would make pockets inside my dresses because the stores only sold dresses for women. Nothing for women who worked. He made me small jackets to wear over my dresses, and in them, I could have my pockets."
"A woman could not go alone into a café. I made my own money, for food for my family, but I could not go in to sit to have a coffee on my way home after work."
"I learned to give the little boys in the street five cents, ten cents, to ride with me in the taxi cab. Women could not drive alone with a man, but with a child with me, I would go where I needed to go and the child with me was able to come to town. The children would line up and wait for me in the morning, knowing I would need one of them with me to ride."
"When credit cards first began, a woman without a husband could not have one. A woman needed her husband to open her line of credit for her. I went to the Vice President of the bank, and told him I had been working three jobs in support of six children, and that with his signature, I could get a card. I promised him I would sign anything he wanted to show that I would pay this bill first. He signed for me, and I was given my own card."
These are my mother's stories. I share them today for her and for all that women before me have endured with lack of freedom and independence, being treated as less than a man and stopped from doing what a man could do without thought. For my mother, who would get up every morning and once again make her way through the inequality and injustice of life as a woman. For her, for her mother, and her mother's mother, I honor them and thank them for their example of perseverance, fight, and pride, in being a woman.
These are my mother's stories, and I am in accordance with her.
Women find a way to do what they need to do and keep on improvising, devising, inventing, and making it happen until the world catches up to them.
One day, may our world evolve enough to open space for us to be where we ought to be. But until then, I celebrate my mother, and the women of the world, on this day set aside for recognition of the women of the world, International Women's Day.
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