Joy Royster _ (joylroys@mars.utm.edu) from 170.143.229.124 at 09/25/98 03:58PM
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    Southern women. I always think of women in big dresses with hoop skirts, fanning themselves at a picnic, and waiting for some man to bring them a drink. At least that was what I always thought until last night. I went to the lecture that Dr.Anne Firor Scott (spelling?) gave and I learned a few things. First of all, the majority of southern women worked very hard to keep the household going. Very few families had enough slaves to do "everything" for them. And even then they still had things to do. I was pretty surprised by what all a woman was expected to do in the south. And I know that, now, the women are much more aggressive and , of course, there are no more slaves and everyting. For some reason, I used to think of southern women as kind of weak. (I grew up in California and moved here when I was 9) I pictured her as not ever lifting any of her pretty little fingers to do anything. These past few weeks of southern culture studies have been a rude awakening for me (thanks Dr.Z!). I never really thought of southern women as women now, I always pictured the Civil War period in my mind when the south was mentioned. I now know that southern women are very hard working and deserve a lot of respect for everything they have gone through to get where they are. I'm sure I'll learn even more as this semester progresses. By the way, I don't really consider myself to be a "southern" woman.