#MeToo and My Second Mystery

By Kay Kendall

When I began to write my second mystery, I placed the crimes to be solved in a revolutionary setting. I wanted to reflect on my participation in the radical movement now known as Second Wave Feminism. Back then we just called it women’s lib.

My book Rainy Day Women came out in 2015, slightly wrong for the era. This was a time, for example, when most young Hollywood actresses eschewed the title of feminist. The term was derided for being anti-men and it was dangerous to be seen as that. It annoyed me—no, it made me just plain mad—to read these women’s comments. Most of them were under thirty years old, and few knew how things had been in prior decades—how constrained the roles of women really were.  

While the plot of my mystery is completely fictional, the feelings my amateur sleuth Austin Starr as she attends consciousness raising groups parallels my own. I provide a record of what it was like, the stages I went through, as I learned how women were subjected to men for millennia—forever, really—and discovered ways to go about changing that.

Back then I thought it would be an easy fix. Oh my, how young I was. How naïve. I thought equality was a reasonable thing to strive for and that most men would be rational and say, “Yeah, sure, ladies. Whatever you want.” I thought things would be “fixed” in a decade or two.

And so here we are today. Six months after #MeToo became A Thing. Two days after The New York Times and The New Yorker reporters shared the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Their expose on sexual harassment included the predations of the film mogul Harvey Weinstein. Their reporting unleashed a storm of  fury that built upon the anger of hundreds of thousands of women who had aleady taken to the streets across America—and also around the world—the day after the presidential inauguration in January 2017.

I am woman, hear me roar. In numbers too big to ignore. And I know too much to go back an' pretend . 'Cause I've heard it all before. And I've been down there on the floor. No one's ever gonna keep me down again.

So wrote and sang Australian-American performer Helen Reddy in 1971 on her debut album. The song "I Am Woman" hit at just the right time to become the anthem of us libbers. We wanted equal opportunity for jobs, decent childcare, help with the housework (HELP?!), reproductive freedom, and serious treatment as a member of the human race. Sexual exploitation and abuse was not mentioned much, if at all. Women kept their sad, sordid stories of abusive bosses, strangers, and relatives mostly to themselves.

Flash forward to today. Now we know. Boy oh boy, do we know. With Weinstein leading the parade, many powerful men followed. Famous men in entertainment and the arts, restaurant chefs, and politicians keep being called out, making headlines, and falling like dominoes. Some hit the skids and lose their jobs for small sins, others for egregious ones. But still, Weinstein remains the rotten gold standard of this type of horrible male behavior. This new climate of women’s awareness has caused actresses who formerly would not call themselves feminists instead to brand themselves as such. Now the pretty young things walk the red carpets together in solidarity. 

And if, after you have read about all this agitation, after you have seen it in the streets and on television, perhaps you want to understand where it sprang from. If so, take a look at my mystery. Yes, Rainy Day Women shows what it was truly like for one twenty-three-year-old woman in 1969. And besides, why were those two leaders of women’s groups in Seattle and Vancouver murdered anyway? And who done it?

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Meet the author

Kay Kendall is a long-time fan of historical novels and now writes mysteries that capture the spirit and turbulence of the sixties. A reformed PR executive who won international awards for her projects, Kay lives in Texas with her Canadian husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to her bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show she's a Bob Dylan buff. In 2015 Rainy Day Women won two Silver Falchion Awards at Killer Nashville.

Visit Kay at her website < http://www.austinstarr.com/>
or on Facebook < https://www.facebook.com/KayKendallAuthor>

 

 

 

Cameron Diaz and Women’s Liberation

 by Kay Kendall                              

                                                                               

I don’t know about you, but I feel relieved. Various TV morning shows and a plethora of online sources that follow celebrities’ doings say I can check one thing off my worry list. Movie actress Cameron Diaz “is not going to die an old maid.”

Really? In this day and age, wouldn’t you think that opinion was old hat? What is this—the 1950s?

Lest you taunt me for being frivolous, I assure you my musings are quite serious about the wedding of Ms. Diaz (42) and rocker Benji Madden (35). For the last two years I’ve thought a good deal about how far we women have come, baby, as I developed my mystery set against a women’s liberation background. Rainy Day Women takes place in 1969. Those were early days in what is known now as Second Wave Feminism. (First Wave took place in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, keying on legal issues, primarily women’s right to vote).

From the vantage point of 2015, looking back at the sixties, you could assume the women’s movement had changed many attitudes about appropriate behavior for women. And then you slam into nasty offhand comments about poor Cameron Diaz. Believe me, this actress is no wallflower. Her dalliances with celebrity boyfriends are the stuff of legend. To name only a few, there were heart throb Justin Timberlake, Oscar winner Jared Leto, New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez, and even P. Diddy  AKA Sean Combs.

With that dating background, Cameron Diaz needs a better commentary on her marriage that took place on January 5. She deserves to be compared to Warren Beatty, famous playboy who settled down with wife Annette Benning when he was all of 55. They wed, had children, and are evidently living happily ever after. When that happened, no one proclaimed he had been saved from a life of sad bachelorhood.

This blog topic was thrust upon me when a longtime pal shared her ire over media jabs at Ms. Diaz. My friend said, “A woman has many other ways to fulfill herself or prove her worth than through marriage. Why hasn’t everyone gotten beyond that narrow, old-fashioned opinion by now?”

Why indeed? Great question.

When I began writing Rainy Day Women, my intent was to show the kinds of issues bedeviling women 45 years ago. They flooded into consciousness raising groups with senses of despair over choices offered them in life—and then left those meetings emboldened to follow their own paths. Despite being called unfeminine or derelict of their familial duties, they set out to take control of their own destinies.

Clearly there are still some people who want women to remain in traditional roles no matter what. Female emancipation still scares many.

My husband likes to tell about the time he was traveling in Asia for business and a male executive delivered a stunning view. “There are three sexes in the world,” the man said. “There are men, women, and American women.” My husband did not find that amusing. Rather, he shakes his head when he tells the story, disturbed at such prejudice.

Okay then, I will now proudly place myself in that third category. If being an American woman means I stand up for my rights as a person then, yes, I will do that.

And as for Cameron Diaz, who has often gone on record as being uninterested in marriage, I would tell her this: “Honey, you just go right on living as you choose. Unmarried, married, or divorced—it is all up to you.” In short, you go, girl! 

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Kay Kendall set her debut novel, DESOLATION ROW--AN AUSTIN STARR MYSTERY in 1968. The sequel RAINY DAY WOMEN (June 2015) shows her amateur sleuth Austin Starr proving her best friend didn't murder women’s liberation activists in Seattle and Vancouver. A fan of historical mysteries, Kay wants to do for the 1960s what novelist Jacqueline Winspear accomplishes for England in the 1930s–write atmospheric mysteries that capture the spirit of the age. Kay is also an award-winning international PR executive who lives in Texas with her husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. Terribly allergic to the bunnies, she loves them anyway! Her book titles show she’s a Bob Dylan buff too. 

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