Feminist to her feet: Shoe shopping with Dolores Huerta

Dolores Huerta is the co-founder of the United Farm Workers and an committed feminist who now heads her own foundation.

For her, even a shoe-shopping expedition can be laden with socio-politics.

For Mother’s Day, her son said he was buying her new shoes. “We go to the store,” she told me, “and there’s nobody to help you. When I was young, there was always somebody who could help you. [Now] it’s like our time isn’t valuable, so we have to look to find the things we need.

“And I thought, what if all women one day said, we’re not going to shop until all these stores put people in the stores to help us? Women’s time is valuable. We shouldn’t have to waste 15 or 20 minutes or a half-hour because they won’t hire clerks. It’s like we’re not important any more. And yet if it wasn’t for us, they couldn’t make any money.”

Shod in new shoes or old ones, Dolores Huerta joins the company of Toni Morrison and John Glenn and Bob Dylan and others when she receives the Medal of Freedom this coming week from President Obama; read more about her in my “Patt Morrison Asks” column.

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