Behind the Character

Sharon “Sherrie” Smith was born in 1950, making her an early Baby Boomer. This means she experienced political events such as the Cold War and Cuban Missile Crisis, the Civil Rights movement, women’s liberation movement, the assassination of JFK, MLK Jr., and RFK, the Vietnam War and Nixon’s Watergate scandal. She experienced the sexual revolution, anti-war protests, drug experimentation, and the financial abundance of the United States after World War II. My character specifically grew up in both New York and California during the 1950s and 1960s. As with many children growing up in this era, the threat of war with the Soviet Union is present in schools and in politics that surrounds her. Sharon tends to care about things that directly affect her and those she loves. My character is from a relatively privileged background (white, middle class, educated, Christian), so it takes her a while to even be aware of Civil Rights issues within the United States, and that awareness is only facilitated by her brother, John. However, she does not really protest in favor of it like her brother does because her privilege largely shields her from racism, so she identifies more with the struggle for women’s rights because she is a woman. She does not want to have to conform to the housewife role that her mom readily took on; she wants to be able to freely follow whatever career path that she wants and have a family on her own time. While she still has a family, being a working mom is difficult because of the glass ceiling and the expectation some employers have that all employees need to work. As seen in the readings, “The Right to Choose: Abortion on Trial in France” and  “The Pill, the Sexual Revolution, and the Schools,” reproductive autonomy was very prominent issue for women, as greater control of their reproductivity would allow them to choose if and when they wanted to reproduce and become mothers. Hence, women fought for those rights to be enacted and protected by protesting. Things like birth control and legalized abortion allowed women like Sharon to be able to pursue careers and have premarital sex for pleasure without great fear of pregnancy. Similarly, with the Vietnam War, she does not want to see her cousin die in the war or have the expectation to have children for the sake of raising as future soldiers, so she protests against it. Having lived through all of these struggles, including seeing the ERA fail to become a Constitutional amendment and entering the workforce as a mother who has to fight to get paid appropriately, she feels hopeful with Obama’s victory because finally it appears that progress she yearned for in her youth is being realized in her lifetime. When talking about the presidential election, I drew on my own experiences during that moment. The fact that a black President, who supported things like women’s rights, would be elected and she lives to see it happen causes her to look back on her life and think about everything she’s experienced politically, which is why the piece is primarily politically-focused. It reminds her that progress is possible, and the fact that her own children are politically engaged and hopeful also makes her hopeful as well.

 - Carolyn Egekeze, Biology, LMU '20