(Old codger doesn't get his way)
Sit down, nb (Old codger says, leaping from his own chair with sprightly 60 year old legs)
Thank you, no, I'm happy to stand.
Isn't a man allowed to be chivalrous these days?
Chivalry isn't dead, I just want to stand on my own two feet.
Aha!
So, what are we doing in tutor group next week?
Friday after, 8:45 am
(Old codger attempts to 'educate' me, by hopping onto my 'feminist wavelength')
The sixties, now there was an era. The sixties and seventies, there haven't been decades like 'em since. If I was gonna design my own history course, THAT'S what I'd teach. The Kennedys, the assassinations, the revolutions... not any more. Social change... social change... no more. This decade is all about technology...
Technological revolution without social change? ("ooohh" someone chuckles, "here we go...") What, no global village? What about...
Nah... huge changes were laid back then.. changes for you. Don't you know what you have now, because of then? It all started with the second world war... women were able to prove themselves in the second world war. Before then, they had to stay in the kitchen, but during the war, they proved that they could do the jobs of men. The country girls all went into the city to be tram conductors, the city girls came to the country to work in the fields...
Actually, I think they proved themselves long before then. It's just that no one was...
It made all the difference. I saw it, saw it with my own eyes. I saw my mother stand up to my father, boy, when he didn't toe the line, he was sent to sleep on the couch! Yes, everything you have now, it was all because of the second world war. I'm not kidding, that's the way it was.
And yet, we still have such a long way to go... (more chuckles from the table. People stand, the meeting should have been over five minutes ago, I start walking out....)
(loudly) That's why you can do anything you want now. You should have respect for that!
(I keep walking)
Oh, I got away with that one, did I?!
(over shoulder) No, you didn't.
Friday next? I can't wait.
* * *
An imagined Friday morning, on the other side of the world...
Democrat elder: Hillary, it's time to read the writing on the wall. You're not going to win the nomination. Now is the time to bow out gracefully. If you keep this up, you will be responsible for tearing the party apart. Yes, I know, I know, you're following the democratic process... but you've made it this far, further than any woman before you, isn't that enough?
Don't bow out gracefully, Hillary.
(with thanks to Catherine Deveny)
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