Volume 3: My days in a college fraternity Chapter 111 Calm Susan
Thirty-two-year-old Vanessa was sitting on the sofa in the living room folding the clothes that had just been dried. Seven or eight children were running around and playing in the living room, dining room, and bedroom. Two quieter girls were using the walls as canvases, concentrating on painting graffiti that looked exactly like those of abstract artists.
These are the children of the neighbors. Because their parents have to go to work in the citrus orchard, they entrust their children to her for paid care.
At this moment on TV, Bob Costa was promoting a kind of cola that could help lose weight. Vanessa She didn't believe that such a cola existed, or if it did, she wasn't going to buy it. Her husband was exhausted from taking care of the fruit trees in the citrus orchard every day, and after dinner when he came home, he lay on the bed like a dead body, and had no interest in her at all.
She just wanted to buy some cheap cereal or food, and fill the stomachs of these little devils with more economical food as much as possible, so that she could save more care fees. Sooner or later, she could use the money she saved to start a small business, so as to avoid being laughed at by her fruit farmer husband, who married a rich girl but couldn't even do the simplest farmer's work.
In Florida, most low-income women work in citrus orchards just like their husbands. After all, Florida's citrus production accounts for 80% of the entire United States. As long as you are willing to work hard, you will definitely find a job here, even if you are a woman.
But Vanessa didn't want to be a fruit farmer. She was unwilling to do so because she used to be a white-collar worker and had a higher social status and presence than her husband.
It is a career label unique to women, between blue-collar and white-collar workers. Non-professional female service workers are collectively referred to as pink-collar workers.
She used to be a pink-collar nurse in a nursing home, a job with good income and benefits, until the damn equal rights movement came along and caused her to lose the good job that she thought would last until retirement, and since then she has been ridiculed by her husband.
She didn't understand why American women were pursuing gender equality before, but later she found out that those who proposed this concept were the wives of rich men, politicians' wives and a large number of women who could live comfortably without working. The women around her who lived on meager salaries didn't want equality at all.
Why equality? Why equal rights regardless of gender? That means women are drafted into the military, women no longer get preferential support from the court when divorcing their husbands, easier access to child custody, the same working hours as men, and the removal of protective measures for women...
Those women claimed that women should be equal to men in all aspects, that there should be no protective legislation, and that women should be respected and independent like men.
These women who didn't have to work started a trend, and women all over the country responded enthusiastically without even knowing the specifics, including Vanessa. Then she and a large number of white-collar workers without professional skills became unemployed.
Because the nursing home responded very actively to this movement and cancelled the previous benefits for female nurses, such as female nurses only need to work six hours, do not need to work night shifts, and do not need to face lustful elderly people alone. The manager of the nursing home smiled and told her that he supported the equal rights movement and respected your choice. You female nurses must work eight hours like male nurses, work night shifts regularly, and take care of the elderly alone. If you can't do this, we will fire you equally like male caregivers.
A female colleague who lost her job with her once said that this trend, which appears to support women's independence and equality, is definitely a conspiracy by rich female bitches.
Vanessa firmly believes this because it makes the situation of women at the bottom of society even more difficult. They have no education, no knowledge, no protective policies, and are not as physically strong as men, but have to compete with men for those jobs on an equal footing. They will never have the chance to climb up, never have the chance to fight for the same life and status as those rich women, and will always be vassals of men.
The women who started this trend will never be unemployed, and can even live a very comfortable life without having to work. They have lost nothing, but instead gained attention.
"My name is Susan Curtis, I'm from San Jose, California, and not long ago, I was a prostitute." A woman's voice sounded on the TV.
I'm still a prostitute. This sentence made Vanessa immediately look at the screen, and then she gave her own judgment with certainty: that woman was definitely not a prostitute, at least not the kind of low-level prostitute she had seen.
The woman on TV looked to be about twenty-four or twenty-five years old. She was wearing simple clothes, a black T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. Her brown hair was neatly tied up and she had a confident smile on her face. She sat on the sofa next to Bob, looking simple and refreshing.
"You don't look like that kind of woman, Susan. Can I call you Susan?" Bob asked the question for Vanessa.
Susan laughed and took out a copy of the Pleasure Seekers magazine and handed it to Bob. "The Pleasure Seekers California edition. I know there's also a Florida edition, so Bob, you're familiar with this kind of magazine, right?"
"...What should I say? You're making me feel awkward. Stranger, or not? I have a girlfriend. Maybe she's watching me on TV, Susan." Bob took the magazine with a wry smile: "How about this magazine?"
"This is a magazine from five months ago. Turn to page 11, the fourth advertisement from the bottom. Look at what is written on it and read it out loud," Susan said to Bob.
Bob followed Susan's instructions and turned to the page in the magazine. Then he showed a shocked expression: "Oh my God~"
Then he stood the magazine up and faced the camera, and the camera immediately zoomed in. Vanessa in front of the TV could clearly see that there was a woman with heavy makeup and posing coquettishly on the magazine, with an escort slogan written next to it. There was no need to look closely at the revealing slogans, just the picture allowed Vanessa to recognize that the woman in the photo and Susan on TV were indeed the same person.
"I borrowed money from a friend to post my own escort ad and selected the photo that I was most satisfied with at the time." Susan looked at the magazine in Bob's hand generously and said with a smile, "Now it seems terrible."
Bob nodded. "Of course, if you weren't with me and were looking at this photo alone, you might think it was good, but now...what happened to you, Susan? It's only been five months, and you're like a completely different person."
"I have indeed changed into a different person. I have been a prostitute for five years. I thought that I would have to stay in that shabby room in the slums for the rest of my life, where I could only enjoy the sun at sunset. I lay in bed and dared not go out, for fear of being killed or missing calls from customers. I would just rot and mold in that room until I died completely. But one evening, I saw a strange advertisement, and my fate changed." Susan took out another copy of The Pleasure Seeker and handed it to Bob:
“This time it’s the back cover.”
"Free computer technology training, free job recommendations..." Bob showed the advertisement in the second magazine and said exaggeratedly, "Who would put such an advertisement in... I mean, it shouldn't appear in those serious magazines and newspapers?"
Susan looked at the audience and smiled peacefully. "A man who really wanted to help poor women put an ad in the Fun Seeker. I was as curious as you at the time, so I called and wanted to ridicule this idiotic behavior. It turned out that the ad did not deceive me, and neither did he. He taught me computer skills for free, recommended a job for free, and even gave me a computer as a reward because I got an A during the free training."
"As long as I get an A in my studies, I can receive a gift? I want to sign up now. The cheapest new computer costs six hundred dollars." Bob said exaggeratedly.
Susan looked at Bob, shook her head slightly, and continued with a smile: "It's not just a gift, Bob. I used to have an irregular weekly income, but now I earn $270 a week, live in a clean and bright room, have health insurance, pension, vacation, and I even became a partner of a small company and own shares of the company. And I chose to accompany him to help more women. So far, we have helped nearly a hundred women like me who have no competitiveness in this society to complete computer training, and helped them find a stable job with a weekly salary of no less than $200 in various technology companies. They are no longer non-professional pink-collar workers who can only earn more than a hundred dollars a week, but professional white-collar workers."
"You are different from other guests, Susan. My previous guests would all be very emotional, jumping up and down or crying. In short, they tried their best to attract the audience's attention, gain sympathy or something. But you have been very calm." Bob asked Susan curiously again.
"I am doing the right thing. When you know you are doing the right thing, your heart is calm, without joy or sorrow. I don't have much education, and I don't know what those decades-long talks about women's equality mean, but I know that what I am doing now is truly helping women and the poor. OSS has given me a chance to be reborn and shortened the knowledge gap between me and those rich people. It told me that as long as I work hard, I can always change my bad life. This is the right thing to do. No matter what the sales volume is, we will keep doing it. I come from the bottom and have faced all kinds of hardships, so I want to help them." Susan looked at the camera calmly:
"I'm Susan Curtis. I'm willing to take responsibility for everything I said. In the end, it only costs 49.99 to give you a chance to change your life."
When Vanessa saw this scene, she almost immediately grabbed the phone and dialed the shopping number displayed on the TV.
"OK, although your tone is very calm, it contains great confidence and strength. Susan, you mentioned a 'he' in your words. Do you mind telling me who he is?" Bob said.
Susan nodded. "Of course. He is the man who changed my destiny. He is the only man who has been willing to give me guidance in life since my father passed away. He is a student at Stanford University, the founder of Actor, the developer of OSS software, and a country boy who is willing to help all the poor. He is Tommy Hawke."
Before Bob could shout for Tommy Hawke to come on stage, the director's prompt came through his headphones:
"We've sold 152 orders and counting before this woman has finished her speech. I don't think it's a good idea to stop her, Bob. Let her continue."
While the camera was focusing on Susan, Bob turned around, turned off the microphone, and said in a low voice:
"This woman is just his believer. Believe me, the guy behind is more inciting, because I have seen it."
