“Just Fine, Thank You.”

Some women have spent their lives working hard, at a paid job, keeping up the home front, or both; caring for children, tending to life’s details, loose ends, and unfinished business, managing to look good at the same time. Adrienne Rich (1977, p. xvi) calls it “this activity of world protection, world preservation, world repair….” Looking good means that a woman should be clean, tidy, reasonably fashionable, pleasant, optimistic, and kempt. Certainly this generalization has its flaws; it is my observation and reflection, however, that across occupations, races, lifestyles and classes, women in the United States are the peacemakers, the face-savers, the solution-finders, all of which is reflected in our female demeanor.