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It was quite the shock to go into work that morning and find all of her male co-workers afraid of her. Pete scooted his chair away from her, Will ducked behind the corner as she passed by, and even Big John made a show of ducking behind his desk. If she had to drop off a message, the man in question would nervously take the paper from her hand with a few fingers. She even overheard a few asking the head secretary if they could be reassigned to a different secretary, to which they were sternly told no.
Samantha found her roommate, Gloria, at lunchtime on a smoke break. “What’s going on? I don’t remember the last few days.”
“Did Buddy hit you back? Is that why you have amnesia?"
“…what?”
In a hushed whisper, to escape the head secretary’s glares, Gloria rehashed what’d happened over the last few days.
“My goodness!” Samantha whispered. “How did I miss all that? Maybe you’re right and Buddy hit me too. I’m telling you, I don’t remember anything.”
“You did seem different yesterday. More… confident. It was a nice look on you. Anyway, I hope you’ll join me in the design program too.”
At home, Samantha stared at herself in the mirror. Confidence being a nice look on her? What on earth did Gloria mean by that? If she looked confident, would that mean attracting a man at last? Her mother was getting on her case about never finding a man, but Samantha couldn’t help it- none of the men she had ever met seemed interesting enough to date. People like Gloria or her friends or that college roommate her junior year of college or that girl her senior year of high school were all far more interesting than any of them. But they weren't an option.
Now the men at work were afraid of her, so there was no hope for her to find a man there. What was left? Go into dirty and disgusting bars? Go to one of the churches her mother was forever suggesting for her?
Maybe she could go into the design program after all, go into a different department where she could find men who were more like her equals, and hopefully, more interesting.
—
It was July 1963. By now, Gloria had gotten married to that man she said she’d gone on a double date with Samantha that one time and then moved out. Both Gloria and Samantha had gotten into the design training program at their company and passed, with flying colors. Samantha was admitted as a designer ahead of Gloria, to her surprise. She wondered if it was because her department wanted to see her gone.
Now, with Gloria gone on her honeymoon and her part of the apartment empty, Samantha did some budgeting. She made more now, but still not enough to afford this place by herself. So she put out ads looking for a new roommate.
The one who seemed like the best fit was a young woman just out of college named Patricia. In a few years, her haircut would remind Samantha of a new model named Twiggy. Patricia was starting as a secretary at a different company, and it made Samantha think of the early days when she’d just moved in with Gloria.
One night, they were chatting, and Samantha brought up how the men in her previous department at work were afraid of her. “Apparently I punched out their boss! Can you even imagine?”
Patricia’s eyes widened in horror.
“Gloria said he was being a pig as usual. He deserved so much more than just a punch.” Samantha shrugged and lit up a new cigarette.
“Is that why you haven’t found anyone? Because your co-workers were scared of you?”
“I just haven’t met any interesting men. They're all boring to me.”
“You know, there’s this new book out now, and it says so many women don’t like being housewives. Maybe you’re better off not getting married?”
“Not according to my mother. What’s the book?”
Patricia found it among her things and gave it to Samantha. It was titled The Feminine Mystique. Samantha read through it that night, fascinated. It was a common refrain she’d heard from her mother, family and friends- “just get married and you’ll be set for life!”
But this book argued differently. It said, “Women, you have been crippled by society via your education and peer pressure. You need to be able to work, or at least to find something meaningful in life.”
Putting the book down, Samantha thought, “I have a job. I didn’t need a man for that. And I've been single for long enough already.”
She wouldn’t figure out why she found men boring until she went to see a movie from a few years before that’d been re-released. This movie had a main character who hung herself after vicious queer rumors went around about her and her co-worker. Samantha empathized with this woman, understanding why she felt she had to do that. It wasn’t because this woman was afraid of her reputation being permanently tarnished over lies. Instead, what they said was the complete truth. Martha was what they said she was, and she (and Samantha) would never be accepted for that.
It would take another ten years for her to eventually find her community, and another five to finally find a partner. For now, Samantha enjoyed the success of her career.