As a first generation Asian-American living in the United States today, I feel pretty lucky. I have a choice in what I want to do with my life.
It also helped that my parents were sort of progressive when it came to Vietnamese traditions. Having seen their older siblings set up in arranged marriages, they married for love. They encouraged me to do well in school and encourage me to ignore boys, for fear of falling grades. Well for fear of pregnancy, too since our immediate family has a history of young motherhood.
Because my parents put such a high value on education and straight A’s, I was the first one to graduate college on both my mother and my father’s side of the family. Thankfully many more of my cousins and my sister have graduated college since my milestone.
Though they were not initially happy with my decision, my parents, my mother especially was proud of my career in costume design. I think she purposely didn’t teach me how to sew even though she sewed many of dresses and other clothes for my sister and I. Even my junior prom dress. My mom worked a blue collar job altering rich women’s fur coats for a department store. Perhaps she was worried that I might follow a similar path if I learned to sew. Except I learned how to sew in my college’s costume shop. Now she’s very proud that I’m a skilled sewist, but, in true tiger mom fashion, she would never tell me.
If I lived in the United States 50 years ago my career choices would have been very limited. My options would have been even more limited if I had grown up in present-day Vietnam.
All this has been on my mind as I’m reading Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff for my book club From Left to Write. Cleopatra is known for many things and infamous for even more. Her Egypt was on a cusp of change as Rome’s foothold on the Mediterranean would soon overtake the western world.
In Egypt, women had many rights that was unfathomable for Roman women. Roman women were expected to be housewives, were expected to be silent in public, and held no political or legal rights. Just across the sea, Egyptian women could own land, chose whom they married as well as divorced, and owned businesses. Best of all they could even be queen, not just in name, but had full power to rule her country, like Cleopatra.
Cleopatra was a feminist. She was well educated. She ruled a country where a woman’s intelligence was expected. What if ancient Egypt had taken over the Western world instead of Rome? Would women’s equality have survived the passage of time?
Even though we have a long way to go with women’s equality, I’m glad that I was able to choose to be a stay at home mom. I was able to choose to work from home, an option definitely not available 50 years ago.
Just like my parents, I’m teaching my children the value of an education. If Sophia wants to be a ballerina AND a scientist, I’m cool with that too. I’ll teach Jaxson that not only he can be whatever he wants to be when he grows up, girls can too. Goodness knows there’s plenty of t-shirts telling girls they don’t have to study.
Boys can be feminists too. I’m making sure of it.
This post was inspired by Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff. Schiff digs into the history books to share with us who the true Cleopatra was. As a member of From Left to Write book club, I received a copy of this book for review. You can read other members posts inspired by Cleopatra: A Life on book club day, September 27 at From Left to Write.