Against My Father's Will: A Memoir

By Jane Morgan Barry

Book Overview

"A Son is a son till he takes a wife; a daughter's a daughter all of her life." Motivated by her experience at Smith College Jane aspires to become more than a "daughter all of her life." She 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, lawsuits against the sexism of her local government and country club, but most significantly, her own internal battles to overcome culturally inculcated ideas of acceptability. In AGAINST MY FATHER'S WILL, the reader follows her, a woman we can all identify with, as she metamorphasizes from captain of her high school cheerleading squad, cheering only for the guys, to active feminist.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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0578567229
• ISBN13: 9780578567228
• Release Date: November 2019
• Publisher: Back Shore Publishing
• Length: 230 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"