Childhood Heroines Redux

I really didn’t like playing with dolls, much to the despair of my mother. Back in the 1950′s, little girls were expected to want to play mommy to their inert little babies, who would just lie there in their doll beds with their sleep-a-bye eyes closed tight. Where was the fun in that? I craved action and excitement, like the boys had with their toys. It wasn’t until Barbie was introduced in 1959, when I was approaching age 12, that I finally got enthused about dolls.

Now we’re talkin’!


I ask you, would you rather play with a typical 50′s doll that looked like this…..

…..or a Barbie that looked like this…..

Who looks like a better time? I rest my case.

Awhile back I read an article in the New York Times about the powerful women in our country who read Nancy Drew books when they were young. The list ranged from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to Nancy Pelosi, to many women in law, education and industry whose eyes were opened to the possibilities that had seemed beyond their reach. If Nancy could be daring and adventurous and go against what was deemed the norm for young ladies back then, well so could they.

I remember owning some Nancy Drew mysteries, but they never became my favorite reading, although I did (and still do) love to read. I think her books probably wound up somewhere at the bottom of my toy drawer underneath my toy Winchester repeating rifle and the wooden tomahawk my Dad made for me. (I think there was a little derringer in there too, like the one Paladin had on “Have Gun Will Travel.”)

My heroines were of the action variety; ones who could give the good ol’ boys a run for their money. So I thought I would put together a list of the ladies whom I held in the highest esteem during my childhood, along with some sketches of them to illustrate my point.

First up…..Joan of Arc.

I loved reading about how Joan heard angelic voices telling her that it was up to her to go to battle to save France. She cut her hair short (like mine!), put on armor (basically boys’ clothes), and got to ride around on her steed telling the guys what to do. What’s not to like?

(Except for that whole burning at the stake thing.)

Most of the paintings of Joan show her wearing a skirt over her armor. I have a difficult time believing anyone who went as far beyond what was considered proper behavior for a young lady as she did would even think about adding a skirt to keep the neighbors’ tongues from wagging. Joan was such an all-time favorite of mine that I created an artist trading card in her honor for my “Great Cats in Art” series, starring my cat Neferkitty—”The Pussycat of Orleans.”

Next up is Gail Davis of the “Annie Oakley” television show of the 1950′s.

From the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture:

“Gail Davis was an Arkansas-born actress who starred as the legendary sharpshooter in the groundbreaking TV Western series Annie Oakley, which ran from 1954 through 1956. She appeared in thirty-two feature films, was guest on a number of TV shows, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, and was an early role model for young women.

At just over five feet tall and under 100 pounds, Davis was a charming heroine on Annie Oakley who wore pigtails and stopped criminals by outsmarting them or shooting the guns out of their hands. She rode horses and did many of her own stunts. She was the first woman to star in a TV western. Many young women later said they were influenced by watching Gail Davis as Annie Oakley, a female character in a traditionally male role. In the show, Gail took care of her younger brother, Tagg, in the fictional town of Diablo and solved crimes with handsome deputy sheriff Lofty Craig.”

My kind of gal. Plus, she had cute outfits.

Finally, we have Irish McCalla as “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.”

From Wikipedia:

“In a newspaper interview, McCalla recalled being discovered by a Nassour Studios representative while throwing a bamboo spear on a Malibu, California, beach, famously adding of her Sheena experience, “I couldn’t act, but I could swing through the trees”. Her 26-episode series aired in first-run syndication from 1955-56.

The athletic, reportedly 5’10″ McCalla said she performed her own stunts on the series, filmed in Mexico, until the day she grabbed an unsecured vine and slammed into a tree, breaking her arm. Her elder son, Kim McIntyre, once told the press he remembered watching his mother swinging from vine to vine and wrestling mechanical alligators.”

I was so enthralled with Sheena’s capabilities. (She could really kick butt.)

Near our house in Southern California was an orange orchard that was being turned into a housing tract development. There had been a lot of excavating done by heavy equipment and one morning my mother got a phone call from a neighbor who said “I don’t want to alarm you, Iris, but Melissa’s walking down the street with a snake around her neck.” (I was around seven or eight years old—Nancy Drew had unsupervised adventures too.)

I remember sashaying down our street with the snake draped around me, a la Sheena, with a gaggle of admiring followers trailing behind. God knows what kind of snake it was or how long it had been dead, but that didn’t matter to my mother who hated snakes of any stripe or color. My homage to Sheena was cut short. But I loved it….it was so cool.

I enjoy looking back at the heroines of my youth. I still hold them dear to my heart. I’m just so glad that there are so many more now for young girls to emulate than there were in my childhood.

But I still think these gals hold up pretty well even after all these years.

About Men

I stopped at the CVS on my way home to spend a lot of money picking up necessary (soap, shampoo, body lotion, hand lotion etc. ) and unnecessary items (new foundation and concealer which I didn't really need at this time but I had coupon for $3.00 off on Revlon products). I tend to wander through the entire drug store just to see if there are any items that I don't need that I can add to my shopping cart. Yes, I use a full size cart at the drug store; I never know how much stuff I may not need.

So as I wandered among the cotton balls and lip glosses, I made eye contact with an attractive gentleman who appeared to be also shopping in the CVS. Southern courtesy means that you don't just pass someone without acknowledging that person's presence, so I smiled and said hello and he did the same. I continued on my journey, managing to walk past the entire selection of L'Oreal nail polish that was on sale without buying a single bottle. I passed the same gentleman a few more times, and each time we nodded and smiled and continued on (once you've spoken the first time, subsequent passes only require a nod and a smile). When I got to the checkout counter, there was one person, a woman, at the counter but the gentleman with whom I had a nodding acquaintance was standing off to the side. Not wanting to be rude, I asked if he was in line to checkout.

"No, I've got a little problem. Could you let me have twenty cents?"

I'm not going to deny anyone twenty cents, so I reached in my wallet and handed him two dimes.

"Thank you, miss."

I smiled and turned, intending to place my many items on the counter, when it hit me that it was likely that he had only one item as I didn't see a cart of any sort. "You can go ahead, I've got a lot of stuff."

"Thank you, I hope that you don't mind, but I needed the money so I could buy a beer."

Until that moment, I hadn't notice the 40 ounce bottle of beer in his hand. I'm not certain what he expected that I would do, perhaps insist that he return the twenty cents and give him a lecture on temperance? Instead, I laughed, and said, "Enjoy your beer."

He paid for his beer, and stood by as I began loading all my goods onto the counter.

"Miss, can I ask you something?"

Whenever a person asks this type of rhetorical question, I always wonder what he or she would do if the response was, "Hell to the no." (I learned that little phrase from Whitney Houston. She used it on her reality show with husband Bobby Brown.)

"Sure."

"Are you married?"

Fortunately, I was not drinking any sort of beverage or I would have certainly spewed it all over anything and anyone within ten feet of me. As it was, my laughter just sort of bellowed throughout the store. When I got myself under control, I was able to muster a response. "No, I'm not married, nor do I want to be."

He shook his head ruefully, and as he turned to go out the door, he paused, lifted his beer in salute and exited.

One of the things about men that fascinates me is that it is rare to meet a man who doesn't believe that he has something to offer to any woman. Woman are born with an insecurity gene. My friends that are beautiful women by anyone's standard, fret about the size of their thighs, jeans that make their butts look too big, and breasts that are too small or too big; in the words of Gilda Radner's Saturday Night Live persona, Roseanne Rosannadanna, "It's always something." It's rare that women are ever convinced of their own attractiveness.

On the other hand, none of my male friends have ever asked me, "Does this outfit make me look fat?" Do men ever ask each other, "Do you think that my gut is too big to wear my speedos at the beach? Would a hair transplant make me look younger? Am I a winter or a spring?"

Is it arrogance or just healthy self-esteem that allows men to more easily assume that they are desirable no matter what? I know, some of you are thinking that I'm generalizing way too much, that men have their insecurities too. I'll concede that; however, even at their most insecure, most men still have more self-esteem than women.

When I was active on e-harmony.com, there were the guys with the movie star good looks who didn't bother to even address their looks in their profile, their pictures said it all. However, more likely was a profile in which the guy identified himself as attractive, good-looking, a nice looking guy, above average in looks--terms that didn't necessarily match the photograph that accompanied the profile by any stretch of the imagination. I never based my decision as to whether or not to favorably respond to a potential suitor on his appearance because in my experience, a man's physical attractiveness grows on me as I get to know him. If he's warm, funny, intellectually curious and kind, then I will come to find him attractive.

I've had it on reliable authority from my male friends that this isn't typically true for men. Attraction is either there from the start or it never develops. I don't know if this is an absolute or not, what do y'all think?

Perhaps I'm just too demanding. The guy in the CVS, who didn't have any obvious means of transportation and lacked enough money to buy a $2 bottle of beer, had enough chutzpah to inquire as to my availability. Of course, I can't help but think that what he really wanted was a source with more beer money for the evening. Back in 1991, the Forester Sisters had a country music hit with a tune called Talkin' 'bout Men. I loved the song, especially the chorus. It's all in good fun.

Well, you can't beat 'em up 'cause they're bigger then you
You can't live with 'em and you just can't shoot 'em
Men! I'm talkin' 'bout men

They love their toys, they make their noise
They're nothing but a bunch of overgrown boys
Men! I'm talking 'bout men