Little Women Show Blog

Take Our Daughter's to Work - a memory

One morning, several years ago, upon arriving at my job at a local television station I was greeted by about 25 girls ranging in age from 5 to 17 who were milling around the newsroom. It was "Take Our Daughters to Work" day...

The Ms. Foundation for Women is proud to partner with Little Women the Musical in promoting a more equitable society for women and girls. Find out how you can make a difference.

UGH! I had heard of it but I didn’t have kids so I never gave it a second thought. At that moment, however, it was all I could think about. I was very angry that I would be dealing with it all day. This was, after all, a serious workplace and I was young and ambitious and didn’t have time for kids who were going to be loud, annoying and in my way. I was about ten minutes into this arrogant mental tirade when I overheard one of the producers explaining her job to her daughter. Whoosh! My giant ego lay deflated on the floor and I realized I had this scenario all wrong. This wasn’t just about bringing kids to work with you. This was about something way bigger than that.

I grew up in the early 1980’s. Every morning my mother dressed in a nice suit with a pretty blouse that had a big bow at the neck (think Jane Fonda in the movie 9-5) and was off to her job just about the same time I would get on the bus to go to school. I never gave it a second thought that my mother had a job. That’s just the way it was. Now when I think of it, it is astonishing to me that at the same time I was in school anticipating the day I would start my career my mother’s choice to work was raising eyebrows all over the neighborhood. Although my mother never discussed her personal struggles in the workplace, making the choice to work rather than stay home with the kids was relatively rare for a woman of her generation and nearly unheard of for the women of my grandmother’s generation. I have been so blessed to believe that I have choices but it has been easy for me to forget all of the trials that my foremothers endured to ensure that both my mother and I were allowed the opportunities that we have had.

In my high school history class we spent maybe a minute considering the women’s rights movement - a lesson that was as abstract as it was brief and limited to voting rights. It wasn’t until several years later that I came to understand the broad spectrum of this movement and that it wasn’t just a blip on a time-line but alive in the hearts of millions of men and women who fought for voting rights, reproductive rights, equal pay for equal work, job security, job consideration, Title 9, property ownership rights and legal rights for women. On this day in my office, those 25 girls joined their foremothers and experienced the beautiful invocation of possibility. Just as I had years earlier when my mother chose to go to work. This seemingly small gesture of taking our daughters to work was about giving these impressionable girls and young women the chance see a variety of choices and opportunities, embrace the value of their personhood and consider the myriad ways they can contribute to the well being of themselves, their families and humankind.

Thank you, Diane Smith, Pauline Elliott, Belva Koenig, Sophie Collins, Stephanie Reel, Louisa May Alcott, Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, Sandra Day O'Connor, Geraldine Ferraro, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Bessie Coleman, Amelia Earhart, Dani Davis, Hon. Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth,Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, Jane Alexander, Lt. Kara Hultgreen, and so many more.

Road Rebel Ren

About Music...

Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought.

--E.Y. Harburg (Edgar Yipsel)

Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.

--Anais Nin

Without music. life is a journey through a desert

--Pat Conroy

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.

--Victor Hugo

Where words fail, music speaks.

--Hans Christian Andersen

All the sounds of the earth are like music

--Oscar Hammerstein

Im music one must thing with the heart and feel with the brain.

--George Szell

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

--Maya Angelou

Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.

--Yehudi Menuhin

There is always music amongst the trees in the garden but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it.

--M. Aumonier

About Music...

Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought.

--E.Y. Harburg (Edgar Yipsel)

Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.

--Amais Nin

Without music. life is a journey through a desert

--Pat Conroy

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.

--Victor Hugo

Where words fail, music speaks.

--Hans Christian Andersen

All the sounds of the earth are like music

--Oscar Hammerstein

Im music one must thing with the heart and feel with the brain.

--George Szell

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

--Maya Angelou

Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.

--Yehudi Menuhin

There is always music amongst the trees in the garden but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it.

--M. Aumonier

What Music Moves You?

Much has been said about music and music's powers but I recently read an anonymous quote that best describes my personal attachment to my favorite music:

"Some music can grip you by the very heart"

As for myself, "theatrical music," whether opera or "musical theater" is what grips my heart more often than any other genre. When I listen to the my favorite music I am filled with it, I feel like my heart beats in time with the rhythm of the song. There are some pieces that really touch me; the score of Weber and Rice's Evita, and the choral music in Puccini's Turandot. When I first heard, "Astonishing" from Little Women-the musical I was totally moved yet again. It made me cry, filled a very special place inside of me and took me on a wonderful journey.

Please join me and add your comments to this blog entry, write about the music that "grips your very heart."

The Power of The Word

Theater, just like a good book, has the power to transport us, inspire us and stay with us as we go through our day. There is nothing I love more than to lose myself at a show or inside a wonderful novel but I think dlsaid it best in her blog

.....All the books I have read are now part of me. From the books of the Bible, Ruth and Job and the Gospels to J.R.R. Tolkien's Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, from C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia to Louisa May Alcott's Little Women.

I have parts of Old Yeller which I read over and over as a kid. I have parts of Grimms Fairy Tales and Mother Goose. I even have parts of books that I read to my children, Berenstein Bears and Where the Wild Things Are.There are books that touch us deeply like Go Ask Alice an Anonymous Diary of a teenage girl, which I think every parent should read.

There are classics that I have enjoyed from Charles Dickens to Edgar Allen Poe. I have parts of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thrillers, Horror, Love, Romance, and even Religious and Self Help Books.

There are books that I have read that I found mundane, and books I started reading that just didn't grab me and I put them down after a few pages.

There are books I took my time with enjoying the words washing over me, the story being absorbed into me. There are other books that I just couldn't put down and couldn't wait to get back to. There are books that I have read that taught me something new, or made me want to experience something new. There are books that I have read that made me laugh out loud, like A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson.

When I read, I see the characters, I feel what they are feeling, they become a part of me, so how could I be just one book when I have so many parts of so many books as a part of me?

Beautifully put!

Spring is here!

As I was reading "Little Women" today and found this wonderful passage in the first chapter.

.... Nothing delighted you more than to have me tie my piece bags on your backs for burdens, give you hats and sticks and rolls of paper, and let you travel through the house from the cellar, which was the City of Destruction, up, up, to the housetop, where you had all the lovely things you could collect to make a Celestial City.

That made me think of Spring and the renewal that comes at this time of year. It seemed particularly fitting today since it is Easter.

Giving to Locks of Love "I Feel Like JO"

Fancesca cut her hair and gave it to Locks of Love and in the process feels like Jo from Little Women...

Today I donated my hair to locks of love. Eight inches of my magnificent mop have now been donated to quite a worthy cause.

I feel sort of like Jo in Little Women. I know in my heart that I’ve done the right thing, but there’s this very vane part of me that just wants to crawl between the covers and cry “my hair, my hair!” I hate myself for feeling this way, but I really don’t like having short hair even though Mom, Dad, and the Beutician said it looks great.

I feel sort of like Jo in Little Women. I know in my heart that I’ve done the right thing, but there’s this very vane part of me that just wants to crawl between the covers and cry “my hair, my hair!” I hate myself for feeling this way, but I really don’t like having short hair even though Mom, Dad, and the Beutician said it looks great.

Have any of you given your hair to charity?

When have you felt like JO?