...If We Are Women

Last week in my Young Adult Literature class, we read a novel called Speak using Feminist Literary Theory. My professor wrote the book on theory we are using for the class (which is incidentally excellent), and one of the quotes he used in his text is from Virginia Wolff. It says, "For we think back through our mothers if we are women."

I was supremely bothered by this quote. I read it, and it sounded so nice, and I wanted to think back through my mother and her mother and the generations of mothers before them. But as a woman, I do not feel as if I think back through my mother. I love my mother, and I feel as if she is a good parent and a good person who contributed largely to raising me well, but I don't see myself as like her. From as far back as I can remember, I have been told that I "think like my father." I adopted this to this day identify myself as George's daughter -- stubborn and logical, highly-motivated, and perhaps not as sensitive as I should be toward others feelings. Of course these adjectives aren't the only four things that define me, but I have always felt that my personality was that of a Walter, despite the fact that my interests rested more on the Collins side of things (i.e. musical theater rather than basketball).


However, as I'm writing this, I'm starting to reconsider, because there is one aspect of my life that comes quite clearly from Ann - Catholicism. I suppose at this point I would consider myself to be a lapsed Catholic; I love and respect Catholic tradition, but have a problem with some of the social viewpoints to which Catholicism ascribes. I'm sure I'll come home to the Church eventually, but for now I can't with good conscious call myself practicing. But the Catholic way of thinking, the appreciation for the saints and prayer and the silence of an empty, vaulted church are aspects of my life that I do, indeed think back through my mother for. I am grateful for that.