Of Bears and Penguins

Well that's just wildly interesting. I had no idea I'd get a suffregette speech this morning. Nor that I'd learn how to make a woman a "nearly human thing".

I was amazed by how many of the platforms remain the same: Economic independence, reproductive choice, equal pay. And was amazed also about how far back the stereotype of men helpless in the house goes back. But I wonder how true it really was back then - I grew up all my life hearing stories of my Dad's Dad cooking, and he being the one to braid his daughter's hair. One of my Aunt's married a man who did all the cooking. Maybe they were above average, or maybe that stereotype wasn't true.

Reading this speech made me think of the Thin Man movie where Nick and Nora have a kid - there's a scene at the beginning where Nora (mind you one half of the detecting duo, and an equal partner) calls Nick and son into dinner, and there's a knowledge that while Nick can walk his son, bet on the races, drink like a fish and solve mysteries, Nora must do the same and order the house.

The raising feminist sons bit was really interesting, because I think that there's been a big movement to that. Now people worry about gender neutral toys and colors and clothes, a step or so past what this lady was talking about.

The movement I guess has at least been consistent, and I think also valuable at times. There's so much more choice for women today than even in my Mom's youth - when women mostly studied nursing or education at college. Today, all fields are open to us. Though I know many women who went to college for their Mrs. degrees, I know equally as many who went to get a great education and pursue their interests and passion.

I'm thinking right now of how shelter's for abused women came into being through grassroots efforts circa the 70s. Thinking of hearing how in the towns and cities, the women knew who among them was being hurt, and informal safe houses sprang up, regular homes of other women who would take the victims in - how the telephone chain would start up, and the women would reach into their resources to help their sister.

Which leads me to think that the women's liberation movement succeeds best when women act as women (a loaded concept, I know) rather than "militant", or "manly". Language provides this debate at it's reduced form in the b-word, which some women have tried to "reclaim" as a mark of equal acceptance with men. Shelter's happened not because women met in a boardroom, or formed a committee (though we're talented at both), but because they used their given sensitivity and nurturing nature to care for someone else. Men and women are different, and if we view the goals of the women's lib movement as being achieved when society can no longer tell the difference between men and women, then we are cheating ourselves and our daughters, not to mention our sons and brothers - terms for which there will be no use, if we are all the same.

Despite all of our choice, I think many women in my generation are confused about what to do with it. Some women want to be married and have babies and be a homemaker, but worry about being judged harshly by those women who chose their careers. Career women often feel judged by the homemakers for being somehow less of a woman. There's a lot of judgement on both sides. Unfortunately society's great answer to this was "you can have it all - career and family, and have to the exact extent you want it." In fact this was the theme of the commencement address at my college graduation. But no one can have it all. There are always choices, always sacrifices, something will be lost in the exchange - and that's okay, because the freedom to make the choice belongs to each of us. One woman's choice to be a homemaker doesn't take away from her identity as an intelligent woman, another's choice to work doesn't make her less of a woman.

The greater question here, and I think at the heart of much confusion for women my age is What does it mean to be a woman? I encountered the other day, a woman in a group of her mostly male colleagues who all worked in the field of researching military contracts. She swore profusely - equal to or exceeding her male co-workers, she was abrasive, and even the way she stood aped her male co-workers. The other women from that office had also adopted some of their counterparts traits, and from the coarse language to the coarse joking, they seemed not so much women, unique, interesting, beautiful and gifted, as people trying to fit in. It made me sad to feel they had given part of their identity up because of the idea that "we're just as good as the boys, in fact, we're one of the boys."

As for me, well I make a different choice. I like my pearls and my skirts, and I like my University Education, and I like my job. I don't get angry when the door is held open for me, but I'll make the choice about whether I walk through it or not. Perhaps too many women think that fighting for equality means being less of a woman, means sacrificing beauty and gentleness and other qualities, or that success in the fight means no longer being thought as a woman.

What does it mean to be a woman? It involves remembering that we weren't the afterthought of the creation story - the "Oh and by the way, here's Eve," we were the completion of it. There are women who are truly oppressed by patriarchal societies around the world, who are in fact dying because of them (consider the plight of a Muslim woman who lives at risk for breast cancer, but can't even talk about her breasts with a doctor). I am not oppressed, but I am bound as a human being, and a woman, to advocate for those who are.