why do women want to be men?, page-130

Good to hear, eagle. My father would be 90 next year if he were still alive.

He made sure all his daughters were educated as far as we wanted to go. Though he couldn't support us financially past high school, he did what he could to encourage us and give a helping hand where he could. He always said that he wanted us to get the skills to stand on our own two feet and be able to live an independent life, whether we married or not was irrelevant. He figured you never know what life will dish out. He engaged us in puzzles, discussions, political arguments and whatever to encourage our intellectual development. I think he was proud of having daughters.

I don't know if he was ahead of his time or not, but he also revelled in living in a cosmopolitan multicultural community, learning some languages of newcomers from other countries. He was active in the community and politically and voted conservative (and served in WWII but hated wars).

Our mother was not especially ambitious for us career-wise and just wanted us to be happy. But she has very supportive of us all our lives and is an independent, inspiring, happy 90 year old who travels a lot.

Her mother emigrated to Australia in the 1910s and was a self-employed businesswomen who raised eight children who she pushed to get as good an education as they could (daughters and sons). She and my dad got along really well.

So the notion of women doing anything we set our minds to goes back through generations in our family for a century at least.

My forebears attitudes and that of your mother put some of the guys on this board to shame.