STRONG WOMEN

 

The LoBuono/Vitanza/Celeste Family

It has been one of the great privileges of my life to be surrounded by strong, confident women. In fact, they raised me. My grandmothers, my mother, my aunts, my sister, and my female cousins were, and are, educated, successful, independent people. Of course, each has their own personality, but all are certain of their value as women.

I could give many examples of just how powerful each one is, but this story about my maternal grandmother might have the most impact.

Her birth name was Theresa (a.k.a. Tessie) Celeste. She was already showing her fierce independence as a young woman (19) by defying her family and emigrating alone from her tiny village in Sicily to be with her future husband, another Sicilian immigrant who was living in Brooklyn. His name was Frank Vitanza. He died when I was very young, so I don’t have strong memories of him. However, I do remember how much my grandmother loved and respected him. But, despite that bond, I can never recall her wearing the traditional black often associated with Sicilian widows. Oh, no. That was NOT Tessie, the girl who dreamed of being a professional singer in America. I will always remember her as being well-dressed in bright colors, properly coiffed, make-up on, and jewelry in place. Always. It was part of her aura.

Well, one day while we were visiting her in Brooklyn, my mother had a health emergency that needed to be addressed immediately. We rushed her to the hospital where her gall bladder was removed. It would require her to recover for about a week at the hospital. Now, this was many years ago when hospital regulations about visitors and hours were MUCH stricter. Today, if a family member provides comfort to the patient, they may even be encouraged to stay. But in those days, when visitor hours were over, everyone had to leave, even close family members.

The problem was that NO ONE was going to tell my grandmother that she could not be with her ill daughter. No one. So that meant a nightly battle between Tessie and the security guard at the close of visiting hours. I mean Tessie was five feet tall, about 100 lbs. and spoke heavily accented English. But that never deterred her from achieving her objectives. In other words, she did not take crap from anyone, especially when it came to her family. I remember one evening when hospital security personnel even had to escort her out of the hospital simply because she refused to leave on schedule.

That might have been enough for most, but not for our matriarch. She would not be denied. So, she devised a plan: she “borrowed” a lab coat from an unattended rack and strolled back into the hospital masquerading as a technician. The hospital never caught on.

She taught me – all of us – just how strong women can be.

 

My mother worked full-time long before it was fashionable for women to do so. Her sister got a master’s degree in education, also at a time when it still was considered rare for women, especially First-Generation immigrant women, to have such a degree. My sister was the first person in my immediate family to get a college degree. And the list of successful women in my family goes on.

So, you can imagine my disgust when the President of the United States would point his finger at a woman reporter, a legitimate member of the working press, who was simply asking the question she NEEDED to ask, and uttered, “Quiet, Piggy!”

QUIET, PIGGY?

I do not care if he’s President of the United States, if he had said that to Tessie, or my mother, aunt, or sister, he would not have left smiling.

How dare he? This is a man who has claims “he loves women” and yet at every single turn shows his disrespect for them. It began long ago with his association with Jeffrey Epstein, through the infamous “grab them by to the pussy” line, and on to the current debacle. And these are not isolated incidents. My god, Mr. Trump has been held libelous in civil court for sexual abuse in the E. Jean Caroll case. Then, in addition to the “piggy” mess, he repeated the pattern when he verbally accosted another female reporter in the Oval Office after she also had the audacity to do her job and ask his guest, Mohammed Bin Salman, the tough question everyone wanted to ask!

He attacks women who do not meet his physical “standards,” those who demonstrate the mental acumen that he so sorely lacks, or others who simply disagree with him. He is the worst kind of chauvinist, i.e., a school yard bully. Donald J. Trump is not your friend. I challenge women to seize this opportunity and demonstrate what I have seen all my life and know you are capable of. Say NO MORE to this misogynistic megalomaniac. You have the power. You always have. Do it now. Men, men of honor who do not fear your strength, are with you. Always. Together, equal in our disdain for this arrogant and ugly Administration, we can return to a sense of true decency in America.