Post by anirbas on Jan 24, 2017 22:24:04 GMT -6
~The Subject Matter at Hand or What's Trending on Social Media?
I was totally delighted with the results of the January 21st Women's March of 2017. After the last decade or so, I had decided the spark of feminism had missed this generation of twenty and thirty somethings, completely. Even the matronly forty somethings seem confused about what feminism is. And who and what these marches during the sixties, seventies and now are about at their core. Of course, those born in the late sixties, were working hard just to learn how to walk and talk and potty train. Nothing wrong with that. Always a time to learn everything.
I've seen a lot of negative posts, pictures and snide comments since the Women's March, by women themselves. Comments such as, "the protesters should be shot. (I've also seen men making these comments, too) I don't know why they keep saying they represent me? I don't believe in abortion. Madonna doesn't speak for me. Miley Cyrus doesn't speak me. Lady Gaga doesn't speak for me."
Really? You would have your sisters, cousins, mothers, aunts, grandmothers, daughters, your next door neighbors of all colors, religions and cultures murdered by police simply for implementing a peaceful protest that surged into a rally of empowerment for women? It was an historic day finished in beauty.
"The Women's Movement isn't for me. I don't believe in abortion. Why do they keep saying they are protesting for us? They aren't protesting for me." You're missing the point. It's not about us all believing the same thing. As none of us do. Even feminists disagree over pro-choice/pro-life, for example.
Myself, I support both, because I am an animal of a different color. I'm pro-woman. And I firmly believe, anything without a womb hasn't ground to stand on discussing wombs or the de-funding of Planned Parenthood. While the one percent have their umpteen tax cut since the eighties-when our government sold us the first hyper-normalization fairytale titled "trickle down economics".
Neither does church and state belong anywhere near our wombs. Women do deserve reproductive rights over our own bodies. We are not chattel to be dictated to, either by a patriarchal government, church, or other women's opinions.
However, having said that, I do not support serial abortions. (Unless there is a health issue, involved) But, I do believe the "morning after" pill should be available for an affordable price and sold over the counter and not behind the pharmacy counter.
So, you don't agree with crotch grabbing? I don't either. Just reason 5,999 I despise Trump. I am not impressed with Madonna, Miley Cyrus, nor Lady Gaga doing so, either. Thumbs up. But, what about that smoking slam poeming on the subject by Ashley Judd? Clap! Clap! Clap! Imho. (In my humble opinion.) Nourish the wild woman in you. Look it up on Youtube and watch the clip all the way through. But, that's just a suggestion. I wouldn't dream of telling you what to do, or any woman for that matter. Unless she were trying to slit her wrist or kill a child, or harm one of my besties, both female and male. But, that's just the mother in me. Keep your hands and feet and objects to yourself or deal with me.
Which brings us to the last couple of things I read today. I wasn't offended by the two ladies sharing these articles that reflected their viewpoint did so. Why? Because I firmly believe in our species, women and our RIGHT to OWN our thoughts and actions.
I wished they had shared an experience of their OWN to support their viewpoint and feelings. I wished they had used their own voice. Told their own story.
Some of you are trying to throw shade where you've never even gone before. (Oh, wait. What's that? The sound of a door you opened for me? Why, thank you. I will walk through it.) You're either not long a woman, fresh out of high school, but no longer a child; or you've never lived anything but pretty much the dream life concerning your single marriages, fabulous and or glamorous jobs, etc...And that's great and nothing wrong with it. It's all good. I'm happy and proud for you. Go, women, go! That's my motto. Go right out and getcha some of whatever it is you want or need. Our lives were made to be lived, not endured.
But, you've never lived the shade you're throwing. Especially when you start talking about women haven't a right to demand and receive equal pay for an equal job. Wait. Whoa. What. One of your examples, is a stock photo of a female hand with long salon nails covered in "omg, it's a dead body blue".
I was born the same year President John F. Kennedy was inaugurated-1961. Which makes me just old enough in the late sixties and early seventies to be paying attention to more than learning to talk, walk and potty train. Old enough to be paying attention to the news...Viet Nam...Kent State college murders...Civil Rights Movement...Women's Movement...Overhearing adult conversations and discourse...If nothing else, I was born an extremely observant child.
I thank whatever god is on call up there, yours or theirs, as a child I was exposed to two very independent, intelligent women in the individual spirits of my Aunts Sheila and Sue.
One exposed me to a world of education and diversity. Sheila always donated boxes of discarded books and magazines to my mother. I know they were meant for Mother. Mother never read them. Someone had to. Me! Me! Pick me!
Discovering the newly published Ms. magazine was an eye opener for me. Of course, much in the boxes was over my head in the beginning, both fiction and non-fiction. But, once I learned to read, I raced to perfect the skill so I could read even more and more. I was reading the dictionary by second grade, for Pete's sake. Well, you get the picture. Nerd girl.
As a result of being a voracious reader from first grade on and the wonderful blessings found in those boxes I read and re-read over the years while still under my parents roof and control, I was learning about feminism before I truly understood why it was important to me, to you, to all of us. Whether we agree on all the issues involved in being a woman or not. We should support each other.
My second example of feminism, was my Aunt Sue. Aunt Sheila breathed feminism. Aunt Sue, lived it. In the early seventies, after the onset of the Old School Women's Movement started gaining momentum in the late sixties. She was born in Texas, moved to California, married a man; birthed two beautiful daughters. When her marriage became intolerable, she left that man and California in her rear view mirror and moved back to Texas with her two daughters. She was the first woman at her Safeway distribution location, to become a fork lift driver. She had to beg, plead and demand the opportunity, none the less. Fork lift operators made more money. Before the Women's Movement, women were mothers at home or secretaries. (Even secretarial work were male dominated jobs until WW2 in America. Women weren't thought intelligent enough to work a typewriter. All the men went to war. The women not only took over the secretarial jobs, but, the factory jobs as well. Someone had to make the war munitions and risk getting their fingers and hands blown off in the process. All of the men that could move, were on the front in Europe. These women damned well deserved equal pay for an equal job.)
As a woman pioneering a place for herself in a male dominated world and rocking it like a boss, my Aunt Sue and single working mother deserved equal pay for an equal job. Just as the females starting to wend their way into the police departments and medical fields in the seventies, deserved the same. Weren't many of them in the seventies. More and more in the eighties. Women, from all walks of life and financial backgrounds had every right to demand equal pay for an equal job, both then and now.
Toward the late seventies and early eighties more doctors, specialist and surgeons had female faces. Did they not deserve equal pay, for an equal job? Finally, women were allowed to have female gynecologists!
What about those working in factories and construction? Does not the female machine operator deserve the same pay as her male counterpart, for an equal job well done? I have seen women sheet rockers in the late seventies that could nail a house off faster than their male counterparts. I once saw an amazingly ambidextrous woman nail off a house using both of her hands. Phenomenal.
In the late eighties and early nineties, there were even female roofers. Some were burly sisters, capable of shouldering shingles up a ladder and onto the roof. Where their lighter, more agile counterparts were waiting to lay it. Are you serious? These women I had the luck to watch work didn't deserve equal pay for an equal job done? The entire crew was female, run by a female.
I've seen female cornice carpenters unafraid to walk third floor, even fifth floor scaffolds nailing off ornate ceiling trim in $500,000 to million dollar or more new homes for the one percent. I've seen these same women do the same thing with the outdoor cornice.
Obviously, someone has had two ex-husbands that were contractors and hired crews. Just because you've never seen a female construction worker, doesn't mean she doesn't exist and deserves equal pay, for an equal job, well done. I will guarantee you, she will not be sporting a waste of money salon nail job in "come fuck me now hot pink". And she might pick her boogers right in front of you. I've seen that a time or two. I'm guessing, sometimes when you work with men, you gotta get just as dirty to get any respect from them.
Which brings me to myself and my moment of glory in time of being the first female at my factory to be taught to use a torch. And I was doing it, before Flashdance in 1979, 1980 and 1981. Now, I can see how this would seem a big leap away from being the geek girl that played classical violin from the age of ten, through junior high and high school and constantly until I was twenty-five.. But, I hit the ground running, left my parents in 1977 and disappeared for a while. Working in Dairy Queen, boring. Working as a checker. Boring. Both, low pay. Factories paid better. Packing tile. Boring as hell and made my fingers to sore to play Charlie, my most favorite violin, ever!
Picked up a job for Arco/Pyradyne as they were called back in that day, in 1979, as a parts washer. Better pay, but, boring as hell on a tight budget. The only positions open to women on the factory floor-parts washer and blower; and weld testers. Otherwise, one was a secretary in the gleaming front office
I ended up as washer and blower in a brazing and soldering department. My department manager was an ex-Navy Seal that had also been an underwater welder and worked on many of the ocean derricks along our coastline and other countries, as well.
I was the only female in the department. And one of only three out on the entire factory floor. They were two Hispanic females that worked as parts weld checkers, for lack of a better term. They did not speak English. No one spoke to them, but their department manager, who was Hispanic and could understand them and relay their work orders to them.
My goodness, but, I learned some excellent oaths from the boys I worked with in that little department for three years. I say boys, not to be demeaning. We were all still such children then. I was eighteen, the boys in their early to mid twenties. Except for Larry, our ex-Navy Seal department manager. You could not call that man a boy. He was a warrior and a sage teacher. He was in his mid-to late-forties in 1979 and regaled and inspired us all with his Larry stories and knowledge of underwater welding, mig and tig welding; any and all brazing and soldering.
He had four brazers and solderers, one machine operator and one parts washer, me, in his department. The machine operator was the fourth torch as needed, if he wasn't calibrating and cutting parts on his loud beast of a machine. We made the inner workings of air conditioners, heaters and water exchangers, etc..in our tiny department. They were brazed and installed into place inside the shells that held the compressors, water exchangers, etc... on the lines by two male brazers. IN the beginning...
After six months of working in Larry's department as a parts washer, I had convinced the boys I could talk as dirty as them, which often then shut them up. That's why I would do it. It always shut them up. But, they taught me well the first six months I listened to them jive and jibe one another as they worked and try to tease me mercilessly to get me to talk. I was a very quiet little fat girl-yeah, I know that's an oxymoron- first soaking the machine cut copper tubing in one vat of cleaner; then moving it to a second vat to rinse; followed by hosing them out using a compressor until all of the pieces were completely dry.
From there, they went to the 4 torch boys table. Two stations on either side of large rectangular, metal table. Each station hooked up with its own oxygen and acetylene bottles and torch. We brazed and or soldered copper tubing in various diameters to copper, brass and bronze fittings. We each had our own water pan, too. For when we purged the pieces while we were soldering the joints. We also sat parts of the tubing into the water pan, to keep the piece cooler. You do this, when you're using 35% solder. It's some high dollar cheddah. You don't want to waste a bit. But, you also have to purge the piece with an oxy/acetylene mix, or was it just one or the other...? Long time ago.
But, I digress. I liked the better paycheck, but, I was bored to death washing parts. Six months in, I started bugging Larry to teach me to braze and solder. He'd taught three of the boys in there how, which included the machine operator. He'd always give me that maddeningly benign Buddhah smile and say, "Nah, girl. You play with fire you get burned."
I approached him every day and argued with him every day about teaching me to braze and solder like he did the boys. Usually privately but, once, in front of the boys. He was mad as hell and so was I. But, it turned out to be a good thing, for me.
After that, when Larry wasn't in the department, Terry, the brazer and solderer he didn't teach himself, started teaching me to dance with the torch, if I had my other work done. This went on about three weeks until we were busted. Larry came back early from his lunch. And there I was, with a torch in my hand and oh, probably a 4% or 6 % rod in the other, practicing brazing copper to copper, the beginning of learning the dance.
Larry thundered in his bull voice, (he was afterall, a Taurus) at Terry to get out of the god damned department, now, or he was fired. Terry turned whiter than he already was and stuttered, "Bbbbut, where ddddo I go?" I giggled. Not at Terry's stutter. But because I just realized, I'd just heard Larry, my boss, the coolest Navy Seal hero to all of us on the planet say god damn. My laughter only made Larry madder.
"Young lady! Put down that god damned torch!" Which made me giggle more. Larry was a gentleman. He didn't curse. When he said god damn not once but twice, it was the first time I'd ever heard him curse. It was like hearing your sainted grandmother say god damn for the first time in your life.
But, Terry got the hell out of that department and Larry laid down the law on what was about to happen. It went something like, "Obviously, you're determined to learn, so, now, you're going to. But, you will not learn from Terry. He doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. In fact, no one will teach you but me and that includes these boys in this department. And you will get burned, lady. And I don't wanna hear you whine about it when it happens. And you will braid that god damned long hair of yours before you get on the torch. You ever let me catch you with a torch in you hand again, with your hair loose, I will fire you. Kapeesh?"
I won the right to learn a more interesting trade than cleaning and blowing parts. I was taught by the best, who was already one of my personal heroes. We all idealized him.
Long story short, under Larry's tutelage, I became the best brazer and solderer in the plant. I'm not bragging. I know. Because Larry said so. And Larry didn't bullshit anyone. My joints were clean, tight, beautiful. No bulbs of ugliness around the rim where the pipe met the copper, brass or bronze connectors. Larry called them art. My master bragged on me. Brought other department managers over to watch me work. I could have done without that. I felt like a dancing monkey with a tambourine when he'd do that. Because he'd always stand there telling them the story of when he caught me learning from that dumb jackass Terry how to work a torch, with my hair blowing all over the place about to light me up. Hahaha. And they'd all laugh. Fucker. He was like a dad to me and I was his bratty daughter.
But, they all wanted me to do their most sensitive work, 35% with a purge, stuff like that, because according to Larry, my work never failed the leak tests. Well, duh. I knew what the fuck I was doing. I was taught by the best.
Don't intimate to me, I didn't deserve equal pay for a job well done, but, done better than that of my male counterparts. Because I did. And Larry and I knew both knew it. He was the one that kept going to the big office up front and telling the big boys, I deserved the same pay as the other torch boys. Not once, but several times. Finally, after two and a half years, I got so pissed off, I walked. That was BC, before children. Still easy to walk away from a decent paying job.
You don't have to agree with feminist rhetoric/protests/rallies; and its importance or relevance to your individual female lives, or your daughters. But, like Jon Snow, "You know nothing."
Learn about yourselves. Learn your history. Start with the Suffragette Movement of the late eighteen hundred, early nineteen hundreds. These warrior women deserve to be read first. They are the women that lost the most protesting our right to vote and our equal value in modern society.
Well, if you've made it this far, I do so appreciate your perseverance. I am not trying to change your mind. I just thought with all the alternative facts floating around in this fake news world because I say so times we are living in at the moment, it was high time for some realism.
At the end of the day, I don't care if you're not a feminist. I don't care if you think feminist are ranting and raving man haters. (We aren't) I believe in us all. You, you, and you. I believe in me, too. I'm always going to believe, women should have equal pay for an equal job. I am going to keep on believing my body is mine and your body is yours. That abortion should always be legal and legal to obtain within certain criteria for women of all financial means. I was ten when I overheard a story between two adult women about a cousin of theirs that had died, from septic poisoning from a coat hanger abortion. What if that sixteen year old girl was your daughter? Your sister? Your cousin?
Yeah, I'm going to keep on keeping on believing in our civil rights as humans and women on this planet. And I will continue to do it for me and for those of you that don't understand how important your rights are. But, you will. When they are all taken away. And we are to start all over, fight for the right to vote.
I'll be the chick in the asylum, with the tube being jammed violently down my throat to force feed me because I dare to think I matter, you matter, our voices do matter, in all manner and scheme of things. I'll be on the front line dying to get the vote for us. Catch up, when you can. There is a warrior in every woman, whether she dons armor, or not.
~Sabrina K. Henderson
1/24/17
Addendum: By the time I left the factory in late 1981, after my success and ease in learning the craft of brazing and soldering, there were three other women brazing on the line, installing the parts we made in Larry's department. One of them was one of the Hispanic girls. She was a brazer, installing the works we'd made into the housing units using copper to copper brazing rods. Her welds never leaked. Larry let me teach her.
I was totally delighted with the results of the January 21st Women's March of 2017. After the last decade or so, I had decided the spark of feminism had missed this generation of twenty and thirty somethings, completely. Even the matronly forty somethings seem confused about what feminism is. And who and what these marches during the sixties, seventies and now are about at their core. Of course, those born in the late sixties, were working hard just to learn how to walk and talk and potty train. Nothing wrong with that. Always a time to learn everything.
I've seen a lot of negative posts, pictures and snide comments since the Women's March, by women themselves. Comments such as, "the protesters should be shot. (I've also seen men making these comments, too) I don't know why they keep saying they represent me? I don't believe in abortion. Madonna doesn't speak for me. Miley Cyrus doesn't speak me. Lady Gaga doesn't speak for me."
Really? You would have your sisters, cousins, mothers, aunts, grandmothers, daughters, your next door neighbors of all colors, religions and cultures murdered by police simply for implementing a peaceful protest that surged into a rally of empowerment for women? It was an historic day finished in beauty.
"The Women's Movement isn't for me. I don't believe in abortion. Why do they keep saying they are protesting for us? They aren't protesting for me." You're missing the point. It's not about us all believing the same thing. As none of us do. Even feminists disagree over pro-choice/pro-life, for example.
Myself, I support both, because I am an animal of a different color. I'm pro-woman. And I firmly believe, anything without a womb hasn't ground to stand on discussing wombs or the de-funding of Planned Parenthood. While the one percent have their umpteen tax cut since the eighties-when our government sold us the first hyper-normalization fairytale titled "trickle down economics".
Neither does church and state belong anywhere near our wombs. Women do deserve reproductive rights over our own bodies. We are not chattel to be dictated to, either by a patriarchal government, church, or other women's opinions.
However, having said that, I do not support serial abortions. (Unless there is a health issue, involved) But, I do believe the "morning after" pill should be available for an affordable price and sold over the counter and not behind the pharmacy counter.
So, you don't agree with crotch grabbing? I don't either. Just reason 5,999 I despise Trump. I am not impressed with Madonna, Miley Cyrus, nor Lady Gaga doing so, either. Thumbs up. But, what about that smoking slam poeming on the subject by Ashley Judd? Clap! Clap! Clap! Imho. (In my humble opinion.) Nourish the wild woman in you. Look it up on Youtube and watch the clip all the way through. But, that's just a suggestion. I wouldn't dream of telling you what to do, or any woman for that matter. Unless she were trying to slit her wrist or kill a child, or harm one of my besties, both female and male. But, that's just the mother in me. Keep your hands and feet and objects to yourself or deal with me.
Which brings us to the last couple of things I read today. I wasn't offended by the two ladies sharing these articles that reflected their viewpoint did so. Why? Because I firmly believe in our species, women and our RIGHT to OWN our thoughts and actions.
I wished they had shared an experience of their OWN to support their viewpoint and feelings. I wished they had used their own voice. Told their own story.
Some of you are trying to throw shade where you've never even gone before. (Oh, wait. What's that? The sound of a door you opened for me? Why, thank you. I will walk through it.) You're either not long a woman, fresh out of high school, but no longer a child; or you've never lived anything but pretty much the dream life concerning your single marriages, fabulous and or glamorous jobs, etc...And that's great and nothing wrong with it. It's all good. I'm happy and proud for you. Go, women, go! That's my motto. Go right out and getcha some of whatever it is you want or need. Our lives were made to be lived, not endured.
But, you've never lived the shade you're throwing. Especially when you start talking about women haven't a right to demand and receive equal pay for an equal job. Wait. Whoa. What. One of your examples, is a stock photo of a female hand with long salon nails covered in "omg, it's a dead body blue".
I was born the same year President John F. Kennedy was inaugurated-1961. Which makes me just old enough in the late sixties and early seventies to be paying attention to more than learning to talk, walk and potty train. Old enough to be paying attention to the news...Viet Nam...Kent State college murders...Civil Rights Movement...Women's Movement...Overhearing adult conversations and discourse...If nothing else, I was born an extremely observant child.
I thank whatever god is on call up there, yours or theirs, as a child I was exposed to two very independent, intelligent women in the individual spirits of my Aunts Sheila and Sue.
One exposed me to a world of education and diversity. Sheila always donated boxes of discarded books and magazines to my mother. I know they were meant for Mother. Mother never read them. Someone had to. Me! Me! Pick me!
Discovering the newly published Ms. magazine was an eye opener for me. Of course, much in the boxes was over my head in the beginning, both fiction and non-fiction. But, once I learned to read, I raced to perfect the skill so I could read even more and more. I was reading the dictionary by second grade, for Pete's sake. Well, you get the picture. Nerd girl.
As a result of being a voracious reader from first grade on and the wonderful blessings found in those boxes I read and re-read over the years while still under my parents roof and control, I was learning about feminism before I truly understood why it was important to me, to you, to all of us. Whether we agree on all the issues involved in being a woman or not. We should support each other.
My second example of feminism, was my Aunt Sue. Aunt Sheila breathed feminism. Aunt Sue, lived it. In the early seventies, after the onset of the Old School Women's Movement started gaining momentum in the late sixties. She was born in Texas, moved to California, married a man; birthed two beautiful daughters. When her marriage became intolerable, she left that man and California in her rear view mirror and moved back to Texas with her two daughters. She was the first woman at her Safeway distribution location, to become a fork lift driver. She had to beg, plead and demand the opportunity, none the less. Fork lift operators made more money. Before the Women's Movement, women were mothers at home or secretaries. (Even secretarial work were male dominated jobs until WW2 in America. Women weren't thought intelligent enough to work a typewriter. All the men went to war. The women not only took over the secretarial jobs, but, the factory jobs as well. Someone had to make the war munitions and risk getting their fingers and hands blown off in the process. All of the men that could move, were on the front in Europe. These women damned well deserved equal pay for an equal job.)
As a woman pioneering a place for herself in a male dominated world and rocking it like a boss, my Aunt Sue and single working mother deserved equal pay for an equal job. Just as the females starting to wend their way into the police departments and medical fields in the seventies, deserved the same. Weren't many of them in the seventies. More and more in the eighties. Women, from all walks of life and financial backgrounds had every right to demand equal pay for an equal job, both then and now.
Toward the late seventies and early eighties more doctors, specialist and surgeons had female faces. Did they not deserve equal pay, for an equal job? Finally, women were allowed to have female gynecologists!
What about those working in factories and construction? Does not the female machine operator deserve the same pay as her male counterpart, for an equal job well done? I have seen women sheet rockers in the late seventies that could nail a house off faster than their male counterparts. I once saw an amazingly ambidextrous woman nail off a house using both of her hands. Phenomenal.
In the late eighties and early nineties, there were even female roofers. Some were burly sisters, capable of shouldering shingles up a ladder and onto the roof. Where their lighter, more agile counterparts were waiting to lay it. Are you serious? These women I had the luck to watch work didn't deserve equal pay for an equal job done? The entire crew was female, run by a female.
I've seen female cornice carpenters unafraid to walk third floor, even fifth floor scaffolds nailing off ornate ceiling trim in $500,000 to million dollar or more new homes for the one percent. I've seen these same women do the same thing with the outdoor cornice.
Obviously, someone has had two ex-husbands that were contractors and hired crews. Just because you've never seen a female construction worker, doesn't mean she doesn't exist and deserves equal pay, for an equal job, well done. I will guarantee you, she will not be sporting a waste of money salon nail job in "come fuck me now hot pink". And she might pick her boogers right in front of you. I've seen that a time or two. I'm guessing, sometimes when you work with men, you gotta get just as dirty to get any respect from them.
Which brings me to myself and my moment of glory in time of being the first female at my factory to be taught to use a torch. And I was doing it, before Flashdance in 1979, 1980 and 1981. Now, I can see how this would seem a big leap away from being the geek girl that played classical violin from the age of ten, through junior high and high school and constantly until I was twenty-five.. But, I hit the ground running, left my parents in 1977 and disappeared for a while. Working in Dairy Queen, boring. Working as a checker. Boring. Both, low pay. Factories paid better. Packing tile. Boring as hell and made my fingers to sore to play Charlie, my most favorite violin, ever!
Picked up a job for Arco/Pyradyne as they were called back in that day, in 1979, as a parts washer. Better pay, but, boring as hell on a tight budget. The only positions open to women on the factory floor-parts washer and blower; and weld testers. Otherwise, one was a secretary in the gleaming front office
I ended up as washer and blower in a brazing and soldering department. My department manager was an ex-Navy Seal that had also been an underwater welder and worked on many of the ocean derricks along our coastline and other countries, as well.
I was the only female in the department. And one of only three out on the entire factory floor. They were two Hispanic females that worked as parts weld checkers, for lack of a better term. They did not speak English. No one spoke to them, but their department manager, who was Hispanic and could understand them and relay their work orders to them.
My goodness, but, I learned some excellent oaths from the boys I worked with in that little department for three years. I say boys, not to be demeaning. We were all still such children then. I was eighteen, the boys in their early to mid twenties. Except for Larry, our ex-Navy Seal department manager. You could not call that man a boy. He was a warrior and a sage teacher. He was in his mid-to late-forties in 1979 and regaled and inspired us all with his Larry stories and knowledge of underwater welding, mig and tig welding; any and all brazing and soldering.
He had four brazers and solderers, one machine operator and one parts washer, me, in his department. The machine operator was the fourth torch as needed, if he wasn't calibrating and cutting parts on his loud beast of a machine. We made the inner workings of air conditioners, heaters and water exchangers, etc..in our tiny department. They were brazed and installed into place inside the shells that held the compressors, water exchangers, etc... on the lines by two male brazers. IN the beginning...
After six months of working in Larry's department as a parts washer, I had convinced the boys I could talk as dirty as them, which often then shut them up. That's why I would do it. It always shut them up. But, they taught me well the first six months I listened to them jive and jibe one another as they worked and try to tease me mercilessly to get me to talk. I was a very quiet little fat girl-yeah, I know that's an oxymoron- first soaking the machine cut copper tubing in one vat of cleaner; then moving it to a second vat to rinse; followed by hosing them out using a compressor until all of the pieces were completely dry.
From there, they went to the 4 torch boys table. Two stations on either side of large rectangular, metal table. Each station hooked up with its own oxygen and acetylene bottles and torch. We brazed and or soldered copper tubing in various diameters to copper, brass and bronze fittings. We each had our own water pan, too. For when we purged the pieces while we were soldering the joints. We also sat parts of the tubing into the water pan, to keep the piece cooler. You do this, when you're using 35% solder. It's some high dollar cheddah. You don't want to waste a bit. But, you also have to purge the piece with an oxy/acetylene mix, or was it just one or the other...? Long time ago.
But, I digress. I liked the better paycheck, but, I was bored to death washing parts. Six months in, I started bugging Larry to teach me to braze and solder. He'd taught three of the boys in there how, which included the machine operator. He'd always give me that maddeningly benign Buddhah smile and say, "Nah, girl. You play with fire you get burned."
I approached him every day and argued with him every day about teaching me to braze and solder like he did the boys. Usually privately but, once, in front of the boys. He was mad as hell and so was I. But, it turned out to be a good thing, for me.
After that, when Larry wasn't in the department, Terry, the brazer and solderer he didn't teach himself, started teaching me to dance with the torch, if I had my other work done. This went on about three weeks until we were busted. Larry came back early from his lunch. And there I was, with a torch in my hand and oh, probably a 4% or 6 % rod in the other, practicing brazing copper to copper, the beginning of learning the dance.
Larry thundered in his bull voice, (he was afterall, a Taurus) at Terry to get out of the god damned department, now, or he was fired. Terry turned whiter than he already was and stuttered, "Bbbbut, where ddddo I go?" I giggled. Not at Terry's stutter. But because I just realized, I'd just heard Larry, my boss, the coolest Navy Seal hero to all of us on the planet say god damn. My laughter only made Larry madder.
"Young lady! Put down that god damned torch!" Which made me giggle more. Larry was a gentleman. He didn't curse. When he said god damn not once but twice, it was the first time I'd ever heard him curse. It was like hearing your sainted grandmother say god damn for the first time in your life.
But, Terry got the hell out of that department and Larry laid down the law on what was about to happen. It went something like, "Obviously, you're determined to learn, so, now, you're going to. But, you will not learn from Terry. He doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. In fact, no one will teach you but me and that includes these boys in this department. And you will get burned, lady. And I don't wanna hear you whine about it when it happens. And you will braid that god damned long hair of yours before you get on the torch. You ever let me catch you with a torch in you hand again, with your hair loose, I will fire you. Kapeesh?"
I won the right to learn a more interesting trade than cleaning and blowing parts. I was taught by the best, who was already one of my personal heroes. We all idealized him.
Long story short, under Larry's tutelage, I became the best brazer and solderer in the plant. I'm not bragging. I know. Because Larry said so. And Larry didn't bullshit anyone. My joints were clean, tight, beautiful. No bulbs of ugliness around the rim where the pipe met the copper, brass or bronze connectors. Larry called them art. My master bragged on me. Brought other department managers over to watch me work. I could have done without that. I felt like a dancing monkey with a tambourine when he'd do that. Because he'd always stand there telling them the story of when he caught me learning from that dumb jackass Terry how to work a torch, with my hair blowing all over the place about to light me up. Hahaha. And they'd all laugh. Fucker. He was like a dad to me and I was his bratty daughter.
But, they all wanted me to do their most sensitive work, 35% with a purge, stuff like that, because according to Larry, my work never failed the leak tests. Well, duh. I knew what the fuck I was doing. I was taught by the best.
Don't intimate to me, I didn't deserve equal pay for a job well done, but, done better than that of my male counterparts. Because I did. And Larry and I knew both knew it. He was the one that kept going to the big office up front and telling the big boys, I deserved the same pay as the other torch boys. Not once, but several times. Finally, after two and a half years, I got so pissed off, I walked. That was BC, before children. Still easy to walk away from a decent paying job.
You don't have to agree with feminist rhetoric/protests/rallies; and its importance or relevance to your individual female lives, or your daughters. But, like Jon Snow, "You know nothing."
Learn about yourselves. Learn your history. Start with the Suffragette Movement of the late eighteen hundred, early nineteen hundreds. These warrior women deserve to be read first. They are the women that lost the most protesting our right to vote and our equal value in modern society.
Well, if you've made it this far, I do so appreciate your perseverance. I am not trying to change your mind. I just thought with all the alternative facts floating around in this fake news world because I say so times we are living in at the moment, it was high time for some realism.
At the end of the day, I don't care if you're not a feminist. I don't care if you think feminist are ranting and raving man haters. (We aren't) I believe in us all. You, you, and you. I believe in me, too. I'm always going to believe, women should have equal pay for an equal job. I am going to keep on believing my body is mine and your body is yours. That abortion should always be legal and legal to obtain within certain criteria for women of all financial means. I was ten when I overheard a story between two adult women about a cousin of theirs that had died, from septic poisoning from a coat hanger abortion. What if that sixteen year old girl was your daughter? Your sister? Your cousin?
Yeah, I'm going to keep on keeping on believing in our civil rights as humans and women on this planet. And I will continue to do it for me and for those of you that don't understand how important your rights are. But, you will. When they are all taken away. And we are to start all over, fight for the right to vote.
I'll be the chick in the asylum, with the tube being jammed violently down my throat to force feed me because I dare to think I matter, you matter, our voices do matter, in all manner and scheme of things. I'll be on the front line dying to get the vote for us. Catch up, when you can. There is a warrior in every woman, whether she dons armor, or not.
~Sabrina K. Henderson
1/24/17
Addendum: By the time I left the factory in late 1981, after my success and ease in learning the craft of brazing and soldering, there were three other women brazing on the line, installing the parts we made in Larry's department. One of them was one of the Hispanic girls. She was a brazer, installing the works we'd made into the housing units using copper to copper brazing rods. Her welds never leaked. Larry let me teach her.
