Women's Work, the San Bushmen and the Role of being a Woman

 Here Bushmen women demonstrate how string is made
as part of the San Bushmen experience at Trailblazers
(Ghanzi, Botswana. Photo: Cecilia Dinio Durkin, 2003)

According to the official International Women's Day #IWD2016 site: March 8 is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.

The date was designated for the all-women garment-workers march in New York City in 1857, "demanding improved working conditions, a ten hour day, and equal rights for women (https://www.uic.edu/orgs/cwluherstory/CWLUArchive/interwomen.html). In 1910, a German socialist named Clara Zetkin proposed this date be proclaimed International Women's Day to commemorate the US demonstrations and to honor working women worldwide. 

For me, IWD is the greatest of holidays. After all, Women's Work is all about helping women to achieve their chosen, desired way of life. Not that men don't matter, but today and throughout the month of March, women are the focus and we celebrate.

As I write my memoir of our life in Africa, I have been exploring the reason I identify with the San Bushmen. While there, I was driven to define, adjust, evaluate and appreciate my role as a woman in terms of being a daughter, sister, wife, mother, author, advocate, business owner, founder, leader and citizen of the US and the world. So complicated, complex, and also so very simple. 

As I grew up, I heard from my mother and father that as their daughter, they would work hard and provide a comfortable lifestyle, make sure I could go to good schools and be able to attend any university that would have me. They encouraged my passion for books and my desire to write. I decided early on that I would be a writer and later, a journalist. They loved that career for me, because they said, "That's something you can do and still be able to make a nice home for your husband and your children." Hmmmm...that left me feeling that my career came second to my "wifely/motherly duties". I didn't want that. At 21, I wanted to forge a life that I wanted, not what my parents wanted for me. 

It would take thirty-plus years to come to terms with those conflicts within. I wanted a career. Writing was all I'd ever wanted to do, the only thing, in my mind, I was ever good at. But I fell in love when I was 19 and wanted to make a life with him. We had children in our early 30's and because he wanted them to grow up in the country and not the city, I quit my full-time editorial job at a company I loved to stay home and raise them. I didn't mind...so much. It wasn't my kids' fault and with thirty years of maturity, nor do I still blame my husband for that decision. I know now, it was mine. 

It would take sitting in the middle of the desert as I met the San Bushmen women for the first time to realize that women made hard choices. They were given tough tasks; to create a home that provided safety and security, nourishment and love, while finding ways to express themselves, accept appreciation, acknowledgment and support. Women create community. 

In the Bushmen's traditional society, when they were still nomadic, the men chased game and water. They traveled great distances in order to feed their family. Women would follow them, picking up and moving wherever the men would find the most food and water for that season. It's not so different for women around the world. I know for me, I moved around a lot for Peter. He wasn't happy with living in the NorthEast. Affected by the sun, we moved to Florida. He wasn't happy raising our children in the congested city, we moved to the tiny village of Cold Spring. Unhappy with his nine-to-five desk job, we moved to Botswana to manage a game reserve. Each place, I set up our house and made it a home. I made friends and filled our lives with connections and camaraderie. That's what my role as a wife/mother/woman has been. 

Funny, the very women who defined me, were also the catalysts for a whole new me. I saw what the

Traditional ostrich eggshell beaded design with added silver beads.
Ostrich eggshell beads are considered to be proof of human
creative thought, the process dates backover 75,000 years.  

San needed to sustain their way of life, their craft production, and to elevate their community out of poverty. I believed my skill-set could help them. I could help them. Me. 

I saw my many incarnations: writer, wife, mother, activist, and marketer come into play as my new-found mission became clear. I would bring the ostrich eggshell crafts the San women made to a US audience and the products with their backstory would sell themselves! 

But juggling family life and an all-consuming workload, nevermind, a consumer-based career, our life was not easy. Peter and my roles reversed while I had the stores and in addition to running retail, wholesale, and ecommerce sites, I was lucky enough to have been given awards, asked to deliver speeches, workshops and presentations. I was invited to join boards, committees, chair orgs. I was sent to Pakistan, Guatemala, and South Africa to trade shows and to help empower women in those countries, as well. I thrived on the ever-expanding responsibilites of not only propogating my return to the US, the NorthEast, but also the idea of Fair Trade, of women's empowerment, and economic development. 

I saw the work of the women being bought in specialty boutiques, at the many craft shows we attended throughout the country, the open-minded women's associations who saw the value in maintaining women entrapreneurs. It was working. I was working. The women were not being given handouts, but working. They were being appreciated for their talents, getting paid for their skill, and benefitting from their perserverance. 

San Bushmen huts were constructed
and reconstructed by the women. 

International Women's Day was brought to the Poughkeepsie area and I was honored to be a part of the celebration from the beginning. For several years, I had been on the steering committee, had spoken at the event, provided giveaways made by women in Ghana and Cambodia. The Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce's (DCRCOC) Women's Leadership Alliance embraced the concept of a worldwide sisterhood. DCRCOC brought me in as a Key Note speaker for their internationallly recognized Athena Awards, and then the next year, I received the distinction of representing the area at the Athena convention. 

Various indigenous melons served as a
source of water when none was available.
Women were responsible for gathering
vegetagles, fruit, nuts and roots.

Bonus, I was able to share my newly appointed/acquired leadership with my daughter. All along the way, much like the San Bushmen who relay information by showing, telling stories, with first-hand experiences, I was able to bring Macallan with me when she started her own nonprofit, Goody Goodies, by fostering her public speaking with talks for girl scouts and participation in Three Dot Dash, raising money by selling Fair Trade crafts, and her fine art at events she participated in, ones she curated and with the help of her peers, a huge awards gala that they planned and executed. 

As a result, I see my role as having come full circle, yes, in the woman I am today and most thrilling for me, the woman my daughter is growing up to be. She doesn't have to consider a career that will allow her to be a good mom. She is not limited by place based on her partner's locale or her country of origin. She has seen how life is in various situations, countries, cultures and she can appreciate what she has and is grateful, as well as, doing what she can to help those around her. Her nonprofit was set up so that she can make a difference, and at 21 has already: impacted the lives of homeless orphaned children in Botswana, put a girl in Zimbabwe through school, empowered teenage girls to become exceptional role models, and contributes to environmental causes to save endangered animals. 

San Bushmen family re-enacting their "Old Ways" at Trailblazers
Ghanzi, Botswana (Photo credit: Cecilia Dinio Durkin, 2003)

And quite simply, it's been the Bushmen women who have taught me, through their actions what's important for me. In their acceptance of their role as wives, mothers, daughters and friends, they know what they need to do to make their homes, to create their communities. And, the reason it all works is that because their families need the men/the hunters to go out and get the meat and to find the water, they know they need the gatherers/the women to set up their homes, their villages. They have roles they play and they do it willingly because they are equal. Their society doesn't function unless each plays their role. Simple. 

It is 2016 and those roles aren't as clear cut in a larger society as they are in the Bushman's small family groups. And because it is not so clear and our roles in the larger community aren't so equal, I celebrate International Women's Day. 

Look on Women's Work's Facebook page and here for stories about a particular woman I know and love. I'll celebrate their contributions to this wild wonderful world we live in. In my own small way, I'll help bring light to their achievements. Because right now, we are not equal. The opportunities for men and women are not the same. One day, maybe in my daughter's lifetime or her daughter's lifetime, we will be paid the same for the same work and education level, we will have more representation in government, women will be recognized and appreciated for their roles in raising their children and creating community. But right now, unlike the ways of the San Bushmen, we don't have that kind of equality. But one day, maybe we will. For now, we still have a lot to learn from the "First Peoples".