april sharpe (aprdshar@utm.edu) from weakley240.iswt.com at 09/24/98 03:22PM
comment
    Southern women represent what is left of the true South. I really don't even think that most women in today's South are really Southern Women. In reality, women today get caught up in all of the competition against men. Women of the older days were practically the slaves to men. Many women in today's South are the head of the house. I see myself as a Southern Woman not because I am submissive to men, but because I grew up here. I have lived on a farm in Tennessee my whole life. I can still hear my granddaddy talk about the "Good old days." What happened to those days? Other than the obvious accent that us "Southerners" have, what is the South. I think that you have to have been here for a long time to see the difference. I see that families in the South are often closer than those in the North. One thing that I found interesting was something that Professor Lynn Alexander shared with us yesterday. She told us that funerals were alot longer in the South. That seemed interesting because it shows that the close knit families that one were have survived. It is neat to look at all the entertainment society evolves around and see that family is still important. I like Sara's term for a Nothern person in the South. "Technical Southerner" South is about family and community. The small farms that have survived show me that what the South has come through to be what it is today. Another issue that I would like to address is the poster for this week. Our English class discussed it today at the start of class. A few different ideas were thought about the woman and the lips that were on it? I thought that the importance stretched from the way the South was (Southern Belles) to what it is (A society of working women who often hide under their makeup). I would like to hear what others thought about it. The artwork was great, but a few people felt that it made women look like they were nothing more than lips. I see it as the chance for women to have a voice in the South. Southern women is what we are today. It also refers to what I saw slave housemaids and such as. Southern ladies were the ones who had nothing better to do than to prepare for the man by piling on the make-up and changing clothes to change from a woman to a lady.