A Pie Of One's Own

I'm visiting M's relatives in big-hair, down-home Dallas, and talked with her grandma, Martha, about pie. Lemon chiffon was her mom's speciality: "she'd fluff up those egg whites and fold 'em in." But not Martha. Seventy and as feminist as anyone at my women's college, she buys pie from the Kroger's freezer if she wants one. We moved from pie to women doctors and she said in her time you didn't hear about them. "Why?" She snorted. "Because they were all at home, baking pie!"

My own grandma is a northern version of Martha. She appreciates a homemade pie, but she'd just as soon order something frozen from the Schwan's truck. For her generation, baking a pie is synonymous with keeping a woman in her place. Maybe they wouldn't say it quite like that, but I can't help thinking they might. I also think of my old professors, second-wave feminists who couldn't believe the retro attitudes of their "third-wave" students. Crassly speaking, it's the Obama women vs. the Hillary women.



I'm not afraid to say I'm a feminist. So what am I doing, baking like a happy little homemaker? The women whose pictures I have plastered around my desk might roll over in the grave. Virginia Woolf, Carson McCullers, Elizabeth Bishop, Zora Neale Hurston, Dorothea Lange, Frida Kahlo - I could go on and on. All strong, smart women struggling to make an artistic name for themselves. Here I am saying, thank you for all that trailblazing. Now I can...bake.

This kept me up a while listening to the North Texas crickets. Then I came around to this (as have others!): I'm going to embrace baking as part of a big ole independent life. I bake pie for me. I bake out of respect for the women who've come before me - from Virginia Woolf to my great-great-grandmother Carrie, who steered a Montana household through the Great Depression. I feel empowered by my ability to bake a pie and dive right into my writing. Or teaching, or reading, or big dreams.

And that whole younger vs. older women was (and is) trumped up by the media. They want us to feel torn up and mad at each other. What Kind of Woman Are You ... dun duh dun. Who needs it? I think most women are smart enough to see through the "battle" and move on to solidarity. Okay, I hope. And I'll keep on hoping.

Back to the deliciousness soon. Just had to get this musing off my chest.