Against My Father's Will

Book excerpt: "A Son is a son till he takes a wife; a daughter's a daughter all of her life."In AGAINST MY FATHER'S WILL, the reader follows Jane, an ordinary woman we can all identify with, as she metamorphosizes from captain of her high school cheerleading squad cheering only for males to feminist activist. Motivated by her experience at Smith College Jane aspires to become a modern, "liberated" woman, to break the housewife mold of her mother and her mother's contemporaries. That journey toward liberation entails painful conflict with her traditional father as she resists daughterly subordination, lawsuits against the sexism of her local government and country club, and always, an epic, internal battle to overcome culturally inculcated ideas of acceptability. When her father dies, she discovers that his Last Will and Testament favors her sister with the bulk of his estate, the family homes. Her principles and ideals collide with the searing emotional pain of rejection. Jane is left wondering if her father's Last Will and Testament is his final repudiation of her for her declaration of independence and equality.Filled with wit and heart, ultimately, Jane's memoir recounts the universal struggle to affirm and love oneself. It is her hope that her story will help other women recognize that the fight for dignity and equality rages not only without, but more deviously and crucially, within. Until the battle is won there, women are all still vulnerable to accept "less than" status.