Woman of Liberty
It can be a great time to be a woman but all that has happened in both politics with Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, in the media with Mel Gibson and his wife, and in the entertainment business with the antics of women like Lady Gaga I have been questioning the direction and movement of women’s liberation. I have concluded that while it may appear that women have come a long way, there is much more to do to secure true liberation.
When I was a young woman in the seventies I remember this “bacon” commercial for Enjoli.
It actually is pretty silly. Women were supposed to have it all and be it all. Women and men expected a lot from women. This commercial says we can have it all and our man too, as long as we can still cook, clean, take care of him and still look and smell wonderful! Women’s liberation was all the talk. We knew we were going to pass the equal rights amendment. It was our time, or was it? Civil rights legislation had passed so it was our turn, right? Between Roe vs. Wade and the sexual revolution the times had to be changing. During the seventies Title IX was passed.
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance…
—United States Code Section 20
So of course the equal rights amendment would pass too. To my surprise the equal rights amendment was never passed. It needed 38 states to ratify it. It fell short by three states. http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/ Many are still hopeful that it can be passed!
In my opinion the seventies were a time of real growth for women through education and their own spiritual awakening. I grew up in a large family of 14 children. I had much more opportunity in the seventies than my two sisters that were ten and twelve years older than me had in the sixties. I knew I was going to college. That thought wasn’t as clear for my sisters. Part of it was probably because I was the youngest of those 14 children. My parents were teachers through much of my real formative years and part of it was that my parents were financially better off in the seventies as opposed to the sixties. However, a big part of it was because of the expectations of young women in the early sixties were different than in the early seventies. The seventies also was a time of absolute turmoil with the Watergate scandal and the oil embargo. However, it was a time when I was able to discover art and who I am as a person.
I went to Michigan State University and I had more freedom than I had ever known as a small town girl growing up in Kingston, Cass City and Maple City. I met many different people from very different cultures than my own and I learned about tolerance, acceptance and understanding. These really are the backbone of what I believe as a person today. We are not all the same and that is the beauty of the human race. I learned to embrace other people and to try and keep my mind open to the possibility that I wasn’t always “right” about everything. MSU was a Utopian society for me. Even though it was actually going through a crime spree of rapes during some of the time I was there, I was kept blissfully dumb about most of what was going on with that type of stuff. I was ever the optimist and thought this was what the real world is all about. The Utopian society of college where everyone wants to learn and the mind is like a sponge was where I was at. I felt like I was doing something big, something real.
The real world is not the utopian college world of the seventies. In the real world women were still subjected to the same degradation with commercials and advertising and general life that has always been present. Today it seems like a lot of women are working but not because they are seeking their life dream but out of necessity for the family good. Unfortunately, women are still getting paid less than their male counterparts.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/38281/20100726/wage-discrimination-by-gender.htm
For men this is also a problem because with the current economy it is cheaper to hire women than men!
I’m also perplexed by the modern woman image that is often portrayed in advertising, movies, etc. The modern woman of today is still very much dependent on her visual appeal to a man. The modern woman is beautiful, fit and oh so sculpted by surgery and botox treatments.
The modern woman is a poor sister to the seventies woman as the modern woman has grown up thinking that she is absolutely equal in the eyes of the law and everyone else when the truth has so many more deceptive layers. The modern woman is still subject to the same forms of degradation that her ancestors faced. http://www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/herstory/herstory.html
Women may think they have come a long way and perhaps in some ways they have but in the area of abuse, power and control I think “We have miles to go before we sleep.” Women are still subject to the laws made by men. In our country where women make up 50.7% of the population we are still far behind in our political representation. http://contexts.org/socimages/2008/05/18/comparison-of-percentage-of-women-in-state-legislatures-2008/
Some may think I am being picky here but it is time for women to be given the same rights as men. The only way this can really be accomplished is through political representation. As long as men are writing the laws from a man’s perspective, some areas that pertain to women will always be overlooked. Politics is powerful. There has to be a reason that politicians will raise millions of dollars for a seat that pays much less than the cost of running for it. As much as we hear about all of the altruistic reasons these politicians run for office, the truth is politics is powerful and it is a magnet for money and more power. Men have known this for years. Women haven’t given enough thought about running for office for a variety of reasons. Maybe they’re too busy raising their children or maybe they don’t have the confidence to run for office but it is time for women to stand up and be counted in the political arena.
If we are ever going to have the first woman president, we must engage more women in the political process. Otherwise, that glass ceiling will never truly be broken. I learned a lot during the 2008 election. Both Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were subjected to systematic abuse by the media and even other politicians. I don’t know why men are afraid of these women but it was pretty evident throughout the election cycle. Both Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson were afraid of a Hillary Clinton presidency. I remember Tucker talking about crossing his legs in reference to Hillary. I guess he thought she was one “castrating bitch”. Chris wasn’t any better and of course he had such a fondness for Barack that he had a special “tingle” up his leg. He also said on many occasions that Hillary wouldn’t be where she is today if it wasn’t for her husband. He never once thought about the fact that Bill might not have been president if it wasn’t for Hillary. Hillary was referred to being a “bitch” so many times that I have lost count and we all heard so much about her “cankles”. Where Palin was concerned there was much emphasis on her looks and many sexual innuendos were made in regards to that. She had her legs photographed sans her body. I cannot imagine a man being photographed that way. Men on the other hand can be bald, fat and ugly and still run for office and make it.
This is such a double standard that it is not hard to understand why many women may fear running for office. However, I believe until we get that proper representation we will always still be second class citizens in many ways. I hope there are women out there that are brave and willing to step up and run for office. We must support these women as they run for office. We must have true representation in our political system. It cannot be a “good old boys” club that is unattainable by women. In order for true equality we must win in politics as well as our own personal lives. I encourage everyone to support women in politics. They are your mothers, wives, sisters, friends but most of all they are your equal even if the law doesn’t fully recognize this.