Wild #2

                                        Equality

When Cheryl lost her mother to cancer, she struggled to accept the truth. Cheryl went to men for comfort, walking herself into a divorce, she experimented with heroin, and took a leap deciding to walk the PCT. On a roller-coaster ride, Cheryl was looking for ways to avoid the truth; her mother, the rock that held their family together, was gone. With each of Cheryl's parents, she learned equality, and power as a woman. Recollecting memories with her parents on her journey through the PCT, Cheryl finds ways they have influenced her, building her character on the hike, and a sense of who she is, and what she wants for herself as a woman.

                 "I never got to be in the driver's seat of my own life," She'd wept to me once, in the days after she learned she was going to die. "I always did what someone else wanted me to do. I've always been someone's daughter or mother or wife. I’ve never just been me."(P.538) 

Cheryl stated these words because they stuck to her like glue. The words her mother speaks here are significant in understanding that no matter what is thrown at you, take the driver's seat in your life. Don't let someone have complete control over you, without considering what is best for yourself. This gives Cheryl a kind of power as a woman, an inspiration to follow her dreams, never letting anything stop her from what she wants. This information is important for people who go every day, pretending to be someone, for someone else. Know who you are, and fight for your most desired wishes in life. Never give that up, because in the end, you may look back and wonder what you did for yourself.

“As I stared at the flames, I thought about Eddie, the same as I did just about every time I sat by a fire. It had been he who’d taught me how to build one. Eddie was the one who’d taken me camping the first time. He’d shown me how to pitch a tent and tie a knot in a rope. From him, I’d learned how to open a can with a jackknife and paddle a canoe and skip a rock on the surface of the lake.” (P.598)

Cheryl admits that if it weren’t for Eddie she wouldn’t have found herself on the PCT. With all the background knowledge she learned from her stepdad, Cheryl had some experience in the wilderness. The familiarity she had with the outdoors was a benefit to her hiking the trail. As a young girl, Cheryl was taught to follow some masculine traits. To be familiar with the environment outside, learning some survival skills like starting a fire, and tying knots in rope, all traits of masculinity. From Eddie too, Cheryl learns power as a woman. She grows up with characteristics that are typical with a man’s traits. Here is equality between sexes. Cheryl didn’t just wear pink, and play with Barbie dolls, she camped out, and learned to use a jackknife.

I think that in Cheryl's experiences with her parents, she learned gender equality. Cheryl was not raised to be emotional, material, and weak. She was taught young, to be strong, dominant, and independent. Someone said in class, that the list of a woman's gender norms we created, seemed to be made up of mostly negative traits. I can see that. I think it is important for each gender to share all of those traits, causing a kind of yin to the yang effect, evening out those traits, and loosing those expectations of how a man or woman is supposed to be.