Rosie the Rifle - By Cybèle Elaine Werts

Rosie the Rifle

By Cybèle Elaine Werts
CybeleW@aol.com
www.supertechnogirl.com

The other day at the range, I observed a father introducing his 10 year old daughter to her first rifle. She was clearly terrified. Although I'm a novice myself, I smiled at her in encouragement. But even a smile wasn't enough and she soon left to sit out the morning in her dad's car. This girl needed some courage, and clearly neither her dad nor I could deliver it. I think now the person she really needed urging her on was Rosie the Riveter.

You remember Rosie don't you? If not, here's the short version. During the second world war, the War Production Commission developed the character "Rosie the Riveter" to encourage women to work outside the home. They were particularly needed in factories where many of the men had left their jobs to fight. Of course the artist, J. Howard Miller, made sure Rosie sported a bit of mascara so she didn't look too butch. Six million women responded to this rallying call and ensured that we had the capacity to win the war.

As a tip of my hat to Rosie the Riveter and those six million women, I named my new rifle "Rosie" as well. For me, this rifle represents the first time I too have ventured into what is still mostly a man's world. I'm guessing that it's unlikely that most guys name their guns, but then their grandfathers weren't entering the workforce for the very first time either. That being said, when those grandfathers returned from the front, our grandmothers were more or less sent back to the kitchen. We might suppose then that the legacy of Rosie would be an obscure footnote. In fact, these women who experienced the liberation of a career would raise daughters who would usher in the women's liberation movement, what some consider the largest civil rights movement in history because it affected a full 50% of the population.

The question then is whether my Rosie rifle will have this level of effect in the microcosm of my life. Although I already consider myself liberated, I suspect that Rosie is opening some doors already for me, even though I'm not quite clear on what they are. I think that once you have experienced power, whether it be from work or even a hobby populated mostly by men, it cannot help but permeate the rest of your life. I have found this to be true in another area which is that of working out and being physically fit. No matter what else happens in my life, there is a core of both physical and spiritual strength that I can depend on.

Unlike World War II, women now are active members of the military themselves, and in their occasional deaths have created a new question in the American mind. It's one thing to say women are equal and to send them to war alongside men. But when they die in service to our country, it sets them and all women on an playing field that is equal on the most tragic level. As heartbreaking as it is to lose any serviceperson, man or woman, having women fighting alongside men for what they believe in is Rosie's enduring message for our time.

I also need Rosie's message, because even though I have a career my grandmother could not have imagined and a life made mostly of my own choices, it's still sometimes scary to forge ahead. Sometimes I too am like that ten year old girl, afraid to try some new thing. Sometimes I too have to take a little while to sit by myself away from it all. When I need a little fearlessness, I look up at the print of Rosie the Riveter on my wall and remember that things were pretty scary back in 1943, and a lot of women soldiered on anyhow. Perhaps this courage came through in my smile to that girl so that the next time she shows up at the range, I'll see her plinking away at the 50 yard target with a big grin on her face, just as she will see on mine.