Summary

This chapter is titled “A Working-Class Woman.” The author begins by discussing how women in her family, in her community, and in her part of the world always worked. She discusses the history of women’s rights and power in Kansas, referencing how married pioneers who settled in that part of the world shared the responsibilities and rewards equally. She also references how far ahead Kansas was in the recognition of female power and influence, even while referencing how that recognition applied only to white women for many years, leaving both black women and Native American women behind. Still, she says, very often “women … had the economic leverage to demand that they be able to own land, to divorce a drunk, and to vote” (210). She makes a particular point of referencing how her mother, grandmothers, and female ancestors all worked, often looking down...