Open Memoir: A Single Christian Woman: Is Sex THAT Important?! Preface

SOMETHING happened to me in early life. I have blocked it. But it involved an older man. When he died, he was viewed in his home, with which I was very familiar. I walked around the house from living room to kitchen to dining room and then into the room where his casket was located. I cried harder each time that I walked through that room... I could hear somebody say, she is really upset... But in my mind, I was saying over and over and over and over: "I'm glad he's dead!" And I was crying for feeling guilty for those feelings for an uncle as well as a church leader...

SOMETHING happened to me in early life. I remember a boy looking up my dress, trying to see up my dress, telling me to stand this way or that way. I knew what he was doing. Was it part of playing?

SOMETHING happened to me in first grade. Dale Clark gave me a note: I like you, do you like me? I smiled at him--my first boy friend... Nothing happened... It was nice to have a friend who liked me.

SOMETHING happened to me in grade school. The girls got together to plan to wear shorts under our dresses...and swing on the limbs down in the woods... Boys watched...

SOMETHING happened during grade school... My Mom was working and my aunt and uncle started caring for me. I remember my uncle who called me Shorty, would tell me to clean up this plate or another. Maybe he thought he was helping since my mother worked so hard to feed us... I started to gain weight...

SOMETHING happened when my aunt and uncle moved into a larger house, maybe when I was around 5 or 6. My uncle wanted to know if I wanted to see his new barn. I remember he took my hand as we walked out the driveway. We looked around downstairs and then he took me to the second floor. Nothing was there except one chair and he said I could sit there. He bent down in front of me, and put his hands on both of my legs. He never did anything else that day. But I never went back out with him to the barn. When I told many years later, one sister started to talk about his neighbor women who were, supposedly, lesbians; the other sister declared I misunderstood... Mom was not a talkative woman on any subject; she was always working...

SOMETHING happened around fourth grade. A neighbor, Kenny, gave me my first kitten... He would sit up in the lawn of his uncle's home and wave to me on my porch--things like that... a nice "third" boy friend in my life... (Jimmy was a neighbor's grandson and we later went to school together, he was second for me to enjoy as a boy friend.)

SOMETHING happened to end that friendship. He was allowed to date and I knew I would not be...

SOMETHING happened in my teens, a cousin who carried newspapers came into the house, I was ironing. Before I realized what was happening he was saying, as he rubbed up closely against my back, "I think I'll take a break..." I stopped ironing and went to another room until he left. He was the son of that first uncle I talked about first above.

SOMETHING happened when I was visiting my grandmother. I can remember my grandfather but he died before I really got to know him. That day, an uncle was there with his children and we were all around the front porch. Dale called, "Hey Fatty"...and then asked a question, never heard because I had turned away. I remember my mother said, "Dale, your Uncle spoke to you..." I was irritated and turned to look at Mom and said, "That is not my name!" And walked away... No followup of what I did happened.

SOMETHING happened later that day, across the road. A grange building was located there and all the kids were in back of the and somebody decided to play like we were on a stage... I remember Joyce and I were at the top of the steps and moving around, lifting our skirts... I thought my sister Dee was there; she doesn't remember...

SOMETHING happened when I started Junior High. I became friends with two girls on the bus we rode to Masontown, PA. Carolyn was Catholic; Marian was the first Black person I had ever met. We became close friends. Carolyn had a boyfriend, Clyde who had a friend named Robert. I quickly developed a crush on him... We all were a group of friends... My weight remained high... I had many boy and girl friends during junor and senior high but no boyfriends. I had learned that being overweight made you..." different..." I never dated in highschool.

SOMETHING happened when I started to work in July, 1963. I had taken the standard employment tests and was offered a job in Personnel! Apparently my weight did not affect my test scores... (which I later looked up, of course! LOL)

SOMETHING happened when I started to become friends with the Director's secretary, Bettie. We became friends and she scheduled an appointment at the Student Clinic on campus... She and I were going to help me lose weight. Which I did...

SOMETHING happened as I started working and also losing weight... I began to get attention... At one time, I remember I counted that 13 men, all married, were flirting with me whenever they saw me or would even call me. knowing I answered the phone...

SOMETHING happened to me. I became aware that I must be attractive... For the first time, I saw myself as a woman "interesting" to men...

SOMETHING happened as I was answering all calls coming into the office at that time...A man said, "Will you Jack me off? "I'm sorry sir, I don't understand you, this is Personnel"...  "Will you jack me off? I repeated my question. I could understand his words but didn't know what he meant. By that time, one of the employment officers had walked into my office and was listening. The guy asked again and I responded again. Finally he hung up in frustration, I guess. It happened to be that the guy in my office was called Jack. He asked me what was said and I told him. Jack started laughing, so much that he turned and left, saying I'll talk to you later. Jack and I were about the same age, but he quickly realized that I really didn't know what the guy was saying... When I later went to his office, Jack started laughing again, which bothered me, and he handed me a piece of paper. It held a word that I did not know and he told me to look it up..."

SOMETHING was very wrong. My life had been full of what you would call, perhaps, sexual abuse... (these are just the highlights of early years) And I realized when I read the meaning of the word that I was given to look up, that I was really not prepared to work in this world... And I realized something else... Everything that had happened in my life I had judged as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, based upon WHO the person was... Even if what was happening probably was bad for a Christian (I was baptized at age 13), but that because I loved the person, I considered it good--playing, touching, caring...

SOMETHING happened to me and I had learned that Sex was ALWAYS going to be part of it all... It seemed that Sex was THAT important in the world, and starting with my small community and church in which I grew up...

SOMETHING happened when the METOO Movement Started. I, for the first time in my life, openly stated that I was a victim! Just like so many other women and some men...

SOMETHING happened at that time. I realized that none of my family or the church had prepared me for what had happened or even seemed to care...

SOMETHING happened when a candidate for our president, was heard to say that he could grab "me," or any woman, and they wouldn't mind because he was famous... Me and thousands spoke out telling him he was wrong!

SOMETHING HAPPENED - I SAID "NO WAY COULD HE GRAB ME AND NO WAY SHOULD HE BE PRESIDENT!"

SOMETHING happened to me; I had become a woman! And I wasn't going to take anything that was made to make me feel inferior to any man... and I expected respect!

SOMETHING HAD INDEED HAPPENED... I've learned that Christian Men were NO Different that anybody else related to SEX.

And as a single Christian woman, I had already and would continue to have to deal with... S E X...

~~~

Terminal Ambition Educates Women in Must-Read New Series!

Seal of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Andy folded his hands in front of his face as if in prayer
and leaned his forehead against his thumbs. When he lifted his head, pink splotches appeared high on his cheeks. "The Management Committee considered this very issue last year and declined to take action."
"What? You mean the exclusionary effect, the expense--it's all okay?"
"Not okay, but...a sensitive topic with strong feelings on both sides. The committee decided it was best left to the discretion of each partner."
"Wait. You're saying each partner has the discretion to spend a hundred thousand dollars or more in a night for client entertainment--whether strippers or...or a string quartet--and get reimbursed?"
"Partners must trust one another to exercise good judgment. That's the essence of a partnership, after all."
"Did the committee understand the disproportionate negative impact this practice has on women?"

Terminal Ambition:
 A Maggie Mahoney Novel

By Kate McGuinness


It was 1963 when I started working in the Personnel Office. A year later, I became secretary to the Director who was charged with the responsibility of updating, disseminating, and implementing the new employment laws that came into existence in 1964. It had been a very long time since I had read anything about filing with the EEOC, sexual harassment and sexual discrimination...

Yet, here I was reading Terminal Ambition by Kate McGuiness, written as if this was all new "stuff..."

It had started to change around 1985; this author essentially was telling me that the United States was back where it was in the early 1960s. My heart sunk... but I wasn't the least surprised... Because by the time I left work there, I had planned to file my own legal suit...

Maggie Mahoney had worked hard--the extra hours and extra research that had finally won her a partnership. She deserved it and knew it, nor did she think much about the other women in the firm--she had her own career goals and had gotten where she was because she had worked her head off to get there. I commend Kate McGuiness for developing her character this way, because when she began to have a change

of heart, it was easy to see she realized how much she had been blind to, or just overlooked because of her own time and career pressures.

She had always known that everybody felt she had made partner by sleeping with one of the partners. But she had loved him and ignored such gossip. But then he was killed in an accident and she soon realized a change when she went back to work--a change in the way she was treated.

At the same time, word was going around every place that a large law firm was going to be investigated by the EEOC...

So in response an internal self-review was to start. Maggie was named as one of the members of that group. Do I dare say that she was dumb (or naive) enough to think that the committee was a good thing and would be of great help?

What she found instead was just the opposite...

Readers may think that the novel is overkill--that too many different examples of discrimination were included. In fact, this book has more sexual issues than an erotic novel...LOL

The key thing that these sexual issues were about harassment and discrimination. The example I enjoyed most was when clients were going to be entertained by the in house staff. The female attorneys or associates were excluded because they routinely took their clients to strip clubs. The involved females were told that the clients would feel uncomfortable participating in the "services" if their female lawyers were present. Ahhh, the sexual fun has soooo evolved... [sarcasm intended]

Maggie was astounded when she heard this, and especially amazed that up to $100,000 may be spent in just one night!

You see, somewhere around the 80s and 90s, the desire for power rose again, and simply eliminated all that had been accomplished in the 60s and 70s. Many readers will read this book and exclaim it is revolutionary, illuminating, and will help you "think about going to work and what you can do there..." What I will say bluntly is that if you have faced any form of sexual harassment or sexual discrimination as illustrated in Terminal Ambition, run, don't walk, to the nearest phone and call the EEOC. Alternatively, check out Kate's site, www.womensrightswriter. My own lawyer explained that my own case had gone on so long and was so encompassing that I could not afford to pay her to sufficiently study all the materials in order to represent her. Don't let your own situation continue if there is one... Seek help!

Kudos to Kate McGuinness for starting this series. And for her becoming a full-time advocate for Women's Rights. I consider this a must-read for every women now working...


GABixlerReviews

I did not find your novel entertaining Kate...It read to me more like non-fiction
simply because I've seen so much of it. But I do look forward to the series because I
know that fiction brings reality home to many of us who might never think about 
their own rights under law... Thank you for writing this series...

After leaving the corporate world, Kate was determined to master writing and riding, pastimes that often led to confusion in the telling. Her studies of creative writing proved to be more successful than her horseback adventures which included a broken leg! However, her love of horses remains.

       Kate also took the opportunity to be more fully involved with her son’s life – too involved, he would say. She enjoyed watching scores of soccer games and cheering his team on to a divisional state championship. All grown up now, her son lives in Eastern Europe and teaches English as a second language.

       In addition to Terminal Ambition, Kate writes on women’s issues for a number of online sites. Her essays have appeared in Role/Reboot, Jezebel, Fem2pt0, Women’s Media Center and Ms. JD. You can follow her on Twitter @womnsrightswrtr.

       Kate lives in a utopian community in the Midwest with her husband, dogs and innumerable squirrels.

Related articles

• Terminal Ambition by: Kate McGuinness

Review: Robert M. Brown, Jr. Gets A 10 at BRH for First Novel!

The Longbridge

Decision

By Robert M. Brown, Jr.
Great Little Books, LLC
ISBN: 9780979066153
530 Pages



Crying at the end of a Thriller and wishing there were more, with 530 pages already read, is unusual for me and probably for any novel! But The Longbridge Decision by Robert M. Brown, Jr., is not just any novel. It is by far one of the best I've read in a long time! A very special book indeed!

It is also the first book I've read by publisher, Great Little Books, LLC. Brown includes gratitude in the front of his book for "recognizing and appreciating my literary potential and then demonstrating the courage, commitment and entrepreneurial savvy to invest its financial and human resources in my first novel's publication."

I too want to add a comment in this review about the publisher. The book I received is a beautiful, heavy hard copy, displayed with the little touches that tell a reviewer that they are proud to have participated in this project! Kudos to both author and the publishing staff from this reviewer!

Admittedly, this book had many issues that drew me to select to read it. However, I got so much more.

I love thrillers, and rarely read a romance book, but I was captivated by the poignant love story that occurred between the two main characters. Indeed, I can only describe it as "fun" to watch the two most of the time and then other times, the relationship just about grabbed you by the throat and you wanted to shake one of these characters! I'm not sure whether this book has a sequel in the future, but I do know that I thoroughly enjoyed Tyler Waddill and Mayson Angelina Corelli and would have loved to read more about their relationship, even when the book closed...

Of course, the book ended because the mystery was solved--the mystery of who killed Morris Mendelsohn, a Senior Partner in the firm, Lieber Allen Attorneys. Mayson had been his associate until, unknown to anybody else in the firm; Morris had threatened her with sexual harassment. When she refused to play, her work was withdrawn and given to Tyler. Of course Mayson was a prime suspect for having killed Mendelsohn.

Now you may be thinking--typical thriller format. Well, you would be very wrong! Because the real action is behind the scenes, taking place at the highest level of the government, where Gregory Lamp, Managing Partner of Lieber Allen Attorneys, was to be nominated as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was totally supported by President Thomas Longbridge and it was anticipated that he would be added as the next conservative justice, who would support the President's desire to reverse/create major laws on abortion, same-sex marriage, prayer in schools, etc.

And so, to pull attention away from the nomination process, Corelli was set up to take the fall with, surprisingly, only one man who was willing to help her--the man who had been given her job, Tyler Waddill. And to make it even more horrendous, they were soon accused, along with supporting documentation, of selling secret client information to the Mob. Now actually that was not too far-fetched a plan, since Corelli's family not only had "connections," one of her relatives had been a Mob hitman!

And I haven't even told you about the reallllly good part yet! Seriously readers please don't miss this one. In many ways, it is very scary, because in today's world, this could be happening right now! Remember, sometimes those you trust the most may actually be your enemies... even if you are President of the United States!

The Longbridge Decision by Robert M. Brown, Jr...In a 1-5 ranking, this was a 10 for me!



G. A. Bixler