We weren't, they were

I'm always bragging that my cohort invented feminism.  "We went to the barricades for you," I scold women who don't take advantage of -- or abuse -- everything we fought for in combining life as a wife and mother with staying in the workforce.

Reading an obituary in 'The Glob and Mail' today reminded me that we weren't in the vanguard.  Women like Donna Scott (and Jean Portugal, see "A true press suffragette," Jan. 10, 2017) were.  How well I remember Donna Scott during my years at Maclean Hunter Publishing in Toronto in the early seventies.  Back then, I thought she was a bitch; now I realize how tough she had to have been to get where she did when she did.

The publishing business was definitely a man's world back then, but if you had talent, there was a place for female journalists and I grabbed one.  I landed in the business publications division of M-H and ran into Donna periodically.  A no-nonsense "broad" in the best sense of that word, she straddled both sides of the street.  In other words, she used her feminine charms when she had to and pulled out the tough street smarts the rest of the time.  I knew she was older, but I would not have guessed 19 years.  In other words, she was blazing the trail while I was cheer-leading my way through high school and drinking and "ahem-ing" my way through university.

"She was just about the first woman in everything she turned to," reads her obit. She was the first woman promoted to the senior ranks of M-H and thereafter hit the top rungs of a whole host of private and public sector positions.  "Donna mentored many women and inspired others," it goes on.  She chose not to mentor me, but she did inspire me to take absolutely no BS from male colleagues or bosses.

She had both flare and presence.  "When she entered the room, one would know she had arrived.  Never hesitant to point out one's grammatical faux pas or violation of etiquette rules, she also made sure her family and friends knew that following the proper dress code for every occasion was mandatory."  To all that I can attest.  While we were all sporting mini skirts, Donna was clad in a business suit.  However, when it came to grammar, I still copy her in this obsession.  Working at M-H, you had to have it all grammatically correct, or else the red pens would mercilessly attack your copy.

All the while I worked with Donna -- well, not really "with", just in the same building -- I assumed she had no children.  I knew she was married, but she kind'a kept that an irrelevant aspect of her life, choosing instead to hang out with the boys at the top who wielded the power.  Did she ever bring her husband along to social events?  Never, so neither did any of the other women.

But lo-and-behold, along with a husband -- whose name she never adopted, by the way -- Donna had four sons!  Well, blow me away!  Daycare?  Must have just handled it.  Time off when a kid was sick?  Didn't happen.  Leaving early for a parent-teacher interview?  Out of the question.

Donna, I bow to you.  You were truly the definition of the "liberated woman" 20 years before the rest of us even knew what it was all about!