Dana Townsend (ourhouse@iswt.com) from carroll56k150.iswt.com at 09/29/98 10:37PM
comment
    I am a Southern Lady. I'm not a historian and I don't have a lot of statistics to support my case, but let me tell you: my grandmother and mother would be appalled at the portrait being drawn of Southern Ladies today. My ancestors were poor as church mice; the women worked alongside the men in the fields, and around the farms. But when they left the fields, they were gentle and dignified. Being a lady has nothing to do with class or race, and to many of the rural people of the South, it never did. Southern Ladies always had a scented handkerchief tucked in their shirtcuffs, kept their homes clean, respected their husbands, never allowed a visitor to leave their home hungry and were invariably polite in their public conversation and behavior. Contrary to popular myth, Southern Ladies were not ignorant and vain; they took pride in their demeanor and their status as a rare and valuable person--not "just a woman." Today's Southern women could do worse than aspire to be yesterday's Southern Ladies. If you think a Southern Lady is submissive and weak, make one angry or commit a cruelty in front of one. Anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing delivered by a Southern Lady knows that "weak" is the last thing we should be called. We are strong and intelligent firm-willed and opinionated. And we can manage to be all of those things while maintaining our polite demeanor. We are different from ladies in other places. And proud to be so.