The Gays Are Winning (aka Got Milk?)

Unless you have been living in a cave, you can’t have failed to notice the attention paid to Prop 8 over the past several months. And what about that women’s issue that was front and center media coverage during the recent election? Did you catch it? Oh, right. That was Hillary Clinton’s cleavage.

Sorry. It’s just that I can’t understand how we passed the Civil Rights Act 44 years ago and how we’re having a heated national debate (and state propositions) about defining gay marriage, and women’s issues aren’t even on the ballot. Women’s issues are so far out of the closet that they’re hanging at the consignment store.

There has been a multitude of media coverage about Prop 8. My favorite so far is a Newsweek story written by one its editors, David J. Jefferson, who chronicles his reaction to the recent yes vote that said no to gay marriage. “Most gay people I know seem to have forgotten – or in many cases never learned – the lessons of our collective history,” he writes. He talks about how gays have been lulled into believing their unions would be accepted since they are covered by non-discrimination laws, gay unions are recognized by some states, and some employers offer domestic-partner benefits. “We probably took for granted that gay marriage was an inevitability,” writes Jefferson.

This blog isn’t about gay and lesbian rights, but we might want to take a page from these activists’ book. While they’re acting up, women (me included) are watching from the wings while others – NOW, Emily’s List, The New Agenda, etc. – act for us. Yet, both the first and second waves of feminism were successful because women took to the streets to fight for equality. (NOW was created as a result of the momentum of second wave feminism – not before.)

In his article, Jefferson writes that Harvey Milk (the gay activist profiled in the new movie Milk – watch this trailer!) argued that “the only way to win civil rights is to demand and take them – as Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., Gloria Steinem and all the others did – rather than wait for them to be granted.”

I fear the “woman community” is at risk of being defined by its failures rather than its accomplishments (think ERA). Do you think we could pick one – just one – issue on which to shine the spotlight and use our political power to push it through? Equal pay seems like a no-brainer to me. We might even be able to get some Hollywood types to lend a hand through a viral video (like this one you have to watch as well).

Are you actively involved in speaking out for women’s issues?

I Am Ovaries, Hear Me Roar

My apologies to Helen Reddy for abusing the title of her 1970s hit. But way back when, in the early 19th century, ovaries defined the woman.

The term of art was “ovarian determinism.” Women were seen as a womb and their ovarian hormones as the cause for fainting and hysteria – a common diagnosis in those days (never mind that the corset was literally taking our breath away). The remedy: the rest cure, which basically meant women were shut away in their houses and beds for fear they were too fragile to be a part of society.

We have the male-dominated medical profession of the same era to thank for this health care insight. Up until that time, women played a dominant role as healers (think midwifery). Then men took over the medical profession and claimed their ways were better for women and children, and women were banned from the medical profession.

This phenomenon was written about in an early work of feminist literature by Charlotte Perkins Gilman titled The Yellow Wallpaper (a short and good Wikipedia read via the link). The gist of it: A woman confined to her bedroom by her husband to recover from hysteria goes mad (no shortage of irony there).

I wish I could file this nugget in the “look how far we’ve come” drawer. But then I recall the ignoramus on the Sexism Sells video who stated that we should be worried about a woman in the White House because of PMS and moods swings, and I know that some men (dare I say many) still fear – rather than revere – the female organs that put them on this earth in the first place.

If I sound a little perturbed, don’t blame me, it’s my ovaries roaring. It must be that wisdom born of pain that Helen was singing about.

Setting Me Straight

One of my goals for this blog was to educate myself about women’s issues so that I can teach my daughter and instill in her a sense of gratitude to the women who have paved her way.

But recently it was my seven-year-old son who set me straight.

“Why would you want to take a women’s class when you are a woman,” he piped up and asked one day as we waited in the car line to pick up his sister.

Shame on me for not including him in my goals.

His question took me back to the Declaration of Sentiments and the Seneca Falls Resolutions. It’s a document written 160 years ago at the Seneca Falls Convention, the first woman’s rights conference. To make it more appealing to the male dominated political world, it was patterned after the Declaration of Independence. It was signed by 68 women and 32 men, including the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. That’s more women than men who signed the original Declaration, and the sentiments expressed were considered equally, if not more, provocative than the rebellious statements in 1776.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

These women and men were appealing to society – to men – to give them equal rights. I hope that, by including my son in my so-called feminist wisdom that I pass along, when he’s an adult that women will no longer be appealing to men for equality. We won’t still be trying to convince society that child care really is one of the most important jobs in the world – and should be compensated as such. Or that domestic violence is a man’s issue too. And that equal pay should just be an unquestioned assumption.

Can I instill in my son the understanding that women are not – as Susan Faludi states – a special interest group?

Do you have a boy who might benefit from knowing about the struggles and successes of women over the past 160 years?

Oh, How Far We Have Come. Or Have We?

No doubt you caught today’s news that Sen. Hillary Clinton has been nominated to be the next Secretary of State. Before we start feeling too proud about how far “we” have come, take five minutes and forty-six seconds out of your day to watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-IrhRSwF9U.

If I had only one shot at one blog to post, it would be to bring you this link.

Enjoy – or maybe not.