You Don't Own Me
Rural Feminism
Every morning when Dad left for work, his truck stirred up a cloud of dust on our dirt road in rural Missouri. It was a kind of magic to watch him disappear into a plume of earth. Mom and I would watch at the window and wave. Then she’d grab my hand and we’d run to the record player. Our first record was always “You Don’t Own Me” by Lesley Gore. We’d sing along while I cleared the breakfast dishes and she washed.
Don’t tell me what to do/Don’t tell me what to say/And please when I go out with you, don’t put me on display/ You don’t own me/ Don’t say I can’t go with other boys
With our feminist anthem blaring, we turned toward chores. As the girl, I did most of the inside work: wipe down the bathrooms, mop the kitchen, dust the woodwork, pick up your brothers’ room, sort the laundry, start a load of towels. I vacuumed every day. When I complained that my brothers got the easier outside jobs: feed the dogs, wash their water dishes, spray down the dog runs, feed the chickens, pick the peppers, I was given the keys to the riding mower, directed to our five acres, and told to mow each field in circles or squares but there better be manicured lines. I put on my bathing suit for the sweaty task and my bare legs were soon covered in dirt and grass. I choked on the gasoline fumes.
While mowing close to the property line, a pick-up truck pulled up next to me. I didn’t know the driver, but I knew to be polite. In the country, neighbors are what you have. Little girls are supposed to be nice. “Looks hot,” the man said. He was older than my dad. “Want some water?” He pulled out a plastic bottle from a cooler on the passenger seat. Then he drained his can of Miller Lite and threw it on the floorboards. It was before noon. The bottled water was dripping ice. I wanted it badly but stayed cemented me to my seat. “Turn off your engine,” he said, “I can’t hear you.”
“No thank you,” I called. “I’m almost done.”
He looked around at the tall grass. “No, you ain’t. Come on. Have some water. Come here.”
I knew I was supposed to obey. He was an elder, surely just a nice country oldtimer offering a little girl some water. “Thanks but no thanks,” I said. Then I mowed a straight line through the middle of the pasture. I knew I’d pay for it with a belt.
The man yelled something else at my back, but I shifted gears and sped away.
No one would have even heard me scream. No one would have cared if I told them.
Mom taught me to appease men because not doing so was dangerous. Just go along and find a way out. Flirt but not too much. Stay near the kitchen and keep the back door unlocked. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Best to be looked over than looked at.
If I’d been in Dad’s truck, instead of homebound with Mom, there would have been a regular radio feed of Limbaugh lecturing about the dangers of ‘feminazis.’ In the 1990’s, at the peak of his polarizing power, Limbaugh had a weekly audience of 20 million, but Dad and my brothers were early fans.
The first time I heard the term ‘feminism’ was out of Limbaugh’s mouth. “Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society.” It seemed mean to me, and Father Ed said not to be mean, but the men in my family laughed.
“I'm a huge supporter of women,” Limbaugh said. “What I'm not is a supporter of liberalism. Feminism is what I oppose, and feminism has led women astray. I love women. I don't know where all this got started. I love the women's movement, especially when walking behind it.” There was another round of knee slapping, but my face burned knowing what it felt like, even at ten-years-old, to have men objectify and threaten you.
Limbaugh explained, “I prefer to call the most obnoxious feminists what they really are: feminazis. Tom Hazlett [ ] coined the term to describe any female who is intolerant of any point of view that challenges militant feminism. I often use it to describe women who are obsessed with perpetuating a modern-day holocaust: abortion.” Father Ed said abortion and birth control were both sins but Mom once found condoms under her parent’s mattress. They couldn’t afford the five kids they already had.
Limbaugh’s first book, The Way Things Ought to Be (1992), was prominent on Dad’s bookshelf. We listened to Limbaugh daily because it was Dad’s truck and he controlled the radio. Limbaugh’s hometown, Cape Girardeau, was a few hundred miles south of us but his zeal was felt throughout the Midwest. I was encouraged to laugh along with the sexist conservative humor but I never found it funny. Going along brought me success until it didn’t, until I couldn’t hold my tongue in the back seat while Limbaugh simultaneously slut shamed, fat shamed, sexualized, and misconstrued women.
Limbaugh notes that not all feminists are feminazis, but the underlying message was clear: Women who desire self-determination weren’t real women at all. Limbaugh preached an anti-feminist message against political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. He helped conservative men believe that feminism was a weapon intended to emasculate them and by elevating the danger of a liberated woman, he paved the way for a toxic trap like Trump and for the political polarization of families like mine.
If Limbaugh was on the air today, instead of dead in the ground, Dad would still be listening, and if I climbed in Dad’s fishing boat, as I try to do as often as I can, I would have to endure it.