I believe that the women before us
who fought for equality would be ashamed to know that their long sacrificing
battle is nowadays defined by sex, birth control, and abortion.
Political rhetorical has increasingly
regressed to a single-minded erroneous characterization of women's rights; full
circle, defining women once again by their reproduction organs. It was that
definition of women those 19th century Suffragettes fought to change.
Regretfully, in this 21st century, we
have waned. We have lost their vision.
It was not abortion that
Charlotte Perkins Gilman spoke of when she said, "It is the duty of youth
to bring its fresh powers to bear on social progress. Each generation of young
people should be to the world like a vast reserve force to a tired army. They
should lift the world forward. That is what they are for."
It was not about birth control that
Susan Anthony pleaded to those disenfranchised 19th Century women when she
said, "There never will be complete equality until women themselves help
to make laws and elect lawmakers."
It was not about sex when Pearl
S. Buck said, "Let woman out of the home, let man into it, should be the
aim of education. The home needs man, and the world outside needs woman."
Those women believed that they were more
than their reproduction organs.
Those heroines that stood,
fought, and sacrificed for women's equal rights would be dishonored that their
fought-for dignities have been redefined by sexual activity.
Define women as women, strong,
intelligent human beings, willing, and quite able to succeed on their own
merits. Florence Nightingale believed as much when she said, "Instead of
wishing to see more doctors made by women joining what there are, I wish to see
as few doctors, either male or female, as possible.
For, mark you, the women have
made no improvement they have only tried to be ''men'' and they have only
succeeded in being third-rate men."
It is undeniable that birth control and
abortion have always been in the conversation, however, inaccurately, it has
come to define women's rights, and I believe that they, Nan Robertson's
"Girls in the Balcony" fought for rights such as equal pay, equal
work conditions, equal opportunity, and respect in the workplace. Those women
wanted to do their job, wanted to perform on an equal basis, and fought hard
for that right.
Harriet Rabb,who led the fight against
Newsweek said about 1964 Civil Rights Act said,
"this fight opened those doors in the 1970s through which many
fortunate and deserving women have followed."
Those doors opened to recognize deserving
women as contributing humans on this earth, not vessels, not objects,
simply human beings.
Those women thinkers knew it was a
revolution to redefine women as human beings rather than by their reproduction
organs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman was clear: “There is no female mind. The brain
is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a female liver.” People, folks, women,
men, all have other needs.
For every quote on birth control there
are dozens for women's rights in politics, in the work place, medically,
socially, and I believe our pioneers would be sadden to know that what they
fought for so precariously has become redefined as sex, birth control, and
abortion. Catharine MacKinnon was right when she said, "It's mainly a few
elite women who benefit greatly from standing with the forces that keep women
down."
Birth control, unprotected sex, and
abortion are individual choices not predicated on inequality. Choice, expressed
in the wise words of Eleanor Roosevelt: "One's philosophy is not best
expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes... and the choices
we make are ultimately our responsibility.
Realize this; it has been only 129
years since the United States had to pass a bill requiring ten "men"
as witnesses to acknowledge that a woman fought in the military. March 28,
1884, the House of Representatives passed House Bill 5335 validating Sarah
Edmonds Seelye service in the Civil War:
"Truth is ofttimes stranger than fiction, and now comes the sequel, Sarah E. Edmonds, now Sarah E. Seelye, alias Franklin Thompson, is now asking this Congress to grant her relief by way of a pension on account of fading health, which she avers had its incurrence and is the
"Truth is ofttimes stranger than fiction, and now comes the sequel, Sarah E. Edmonds, now Sarah E. Seelye, alias Franklin Thompson, is now asking this Congress to grant her relief by way of a pension on account of fading health, which she avers had its incurrence and is the
sequence of the days and
nights she spent in the swamps of the Chickahominy in the days she spent
soldiering.
That Franklin Thompson and Mrs. Sarah E.E. Seelye are one and the same person is established by abundance of proof and beyond a doubt. She submits a statement . . . and also the testimony of ten credible witnesses, men of intelligence, holding places of high honor and trust, who positively swear she is the identical Franklin Thompson. . . ."
That Franklin Thompson and Mrs. Sarah E.E. Seelye are one and the same person is established by abundance of proof and beyond a doubt. She submits a statement . . . and also the testimony of ten credible witnesses, men of intelligence, holding places of high honor and trust, who positively swear she is the identical Franklin Thompson. . . ."
Up to the 1960's women were not of
legal age of majority until age 21 but men were legal at age 18.
If 49 years ago you started in the
workforce when you were 18 you may have just retired. Is there one woman
among you that feels the fight is over and there is absolute equally? Know
this, if we are talking about this, the fight is not over, and if we let sexual
activity control the conversation, we lose.
***
© Janet Goodrich
A woman cannot live in the
light of intellect. Society forbids it. Those conventional frivolities, which
are called her 'duties', forbid it. Her 'domestic duties', high-sounding words,
which, for the most part, are but bad habits (which she has not the courage to
enfranchise herself from, the strength to break through), forbid it.”
The world is put back by the
death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar
gifts to conventionality.
Florence Nightingale
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