Just What Is Feminism?

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A Case Could Be Made....

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When I was a young woman, I was--for the part of the geography where I lived--relatively active in the early women's movement. Oh, I didn't burn my bras or anything--I needed them to keep the girls in check. I didn't march--I would have been all alone (not much of a parade). But I was a card-carrying member of NOW--and the only one in the county in which I lived (NOW had published membership numbers by county, so naturally, I looked for my county--membership 1.)

Then, when we thought we finally had things going in the right direction. Candidate for President Hubert Humphrey's personal physician and confidant, Dr Edgar Berman, said--right out loud and everything--"Suppose, that we had a menopausal woman President who had to make the decision of the Bay of Pigs or the Russian contretemps with Cuba at the time?" Dr. Berman argued that women are limited in their leadership potential by physiological and psychological factors, especially during the menstrual cycle and menopause. (Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,876731,00.html)

Rep Patsy Mink had about the best response. She called Berman a "bigot," guilty of "the basest sort of prejudice against women . . . His use of the menstrual cycle and menopause to ridicule women and to caricature all women as neurotic and emotionally unbalanced was as indefensible and astonishing as those who still believe, let alone dare state, that the Negro is physiologically inferior." Hey, a bigot is a bigot. You gotta' call 'em like you see 'em.

Currently, we have a fairly large crop of middle-aged men in public office going middle-aged crazy: Anthony Weiner, John Ensign, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, John Edwards, Larry Craig, etc. And that's just within the past couple of years.

Can you think of even one woman office holder who has had some sort of sexual scandal? (I don't count the current governor of Oklahoma who got caught in a compromising position with her body guard while she was still married to someone else. I just figure, she is the exception that proves the rule.)

Anyway, maybe it's the men who should be kept out of office because of their instability?

Just saying.
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A Look Back

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Wisdom according to Maxine:

• Someday women will rule the Earth.
• I only hope we don't have to wear what they wore in those '50s sci-fi movies.

(Those pointy, push-up bra-tops, you know. And those ridiculously high heels. Those teeny, tiny waisted skirts/dresses. Oh, and the girdles.)

Only men think of the 50s with nostalgia and want to go back.

Remember, that was the era when there were only a very few female doctors or lawyers or scientists. And the ones who did exist were invisible and the men got ALL the credit.

Women were actively (and craftily) kept out of medical school and law school and advanced studies in science and math. "They will just get married and go home to have babies" was the rallying cry and raison d'etre for the denials.

Women who did work were largely looked down-on. Day-Care centers did not exist as such.

Women could not borrow money without a male co-signer.

Sorry, but I have to stop thinking about the 50s now. I am disgusted -- again. As I was while I survived the 50s and heard so much "No you can't. You're a girl."

Never again.
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Grandma Was Right

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Just when I thought things might actually get better, this opinion piece from the NY Times hits me right between the eyes. It is, of course, correct to remind us that jobs for women will not be adequately represented in the recovery plan as so far put forward.

• A public works program can provide needed economic stimulus and revive America’s concern for public property. The current proposal is simply too narrow. Women represent almost half the work force — not exactly a marginal special interest group.
• Mr. Obama compared his infrastructure plan to the Eisenhower-era construction of the Interstate System of highways. It brings back the Eisenhower era in a less appealing way as well: there are almost no women on this road to recovery.

Why is it that women are so frequently asked to set aside their needs for others? And why do we so often do it? These are the questions I have been asking all my life. As far as I can tell, they are exactly the same questions my grandmother was asking.

Up with the matriarchy!

Talk about wishful thinking.

Speaking of my grandmother, she--with good cause--espoused a plan whereby each woman could (but was not required to) shoot one man per year with no legal consequences. Her contention was that by the second year, those men remaining would straighten right up. The longer I live, the more I am convinced that she was right.

Now, comes the LA Times with the "talking points"

• In case any Bush administration officials have trouble summing up the boss' record, the White House is providing a few helpful suggestions.
• The document presents the Bush record as an unalloyed success.
• It mentions none of the episodes that detractors say have marred his presidency: the collapse of the housing market and major financial services companies, the flawed intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, the federal response to Hurricane Katrina or the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Anyone have their fire extinguisher handy? I believe my hair is on fire--yet again.

I quote the redoubtable Jon Stewart, "Give us our bicycle."
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