Dancing in the ruins: Liberal Street Fighter
Sculpture: “Union” by Anne Mimi Sammis
There are many reasons to oppose the right here in America, but one of the most dangerous things about the religious wing of the movement is their continual assertion of their brand of “traditional” family: man as head, wife and children as subordinates. No matter how much you dress up this attitude from the middle ages with flowery language about shepherding and stewardship, about how the man “serves” his wholly owned family by ruling it over them, it’s unavoidable that allowing this backwards subculture to solidify their beliefs back into law would rob this country of so much.
After all, women have only had the right to vote, to own property, to act as independent people for a relatively short time in this country. The fight for women’s rights has advanced by fits and starts, and there is still so far to go. Here, in the twenty-first century, on the cusp of actually making the humanist dream of true equality something approaching reality, it unconscionable that the ruling political party is in the grips of a social movement that wants to undo all of the gains of the last half century.
How many insights, how many good ideas, how much art and science and engineering have we failed to gain because of all of the talent wasted by keeping women subordinate? This is in no way an argument that women are superior to men, or that we should institute some kind of goddess-worshipping matriarchy. What we need to embrace is a truly secular, humanist vision for our future: that there is potential in ALL individuals to contribute some ineffable talent or value or contribution that can’t be anticipated, because no one has presented it yet. We depend so much on our interconnections, or shared opportunities and limited resources. Can we really afford to silence or ignore half the human race?
It can be argued that when women have more freedoms, societies do better economically:
In particular, there is strong evidence that educating girls boosts prosperity. It is probably the single best investment that can be made in the developing world. Not only are better educated women more productive, but they raise healthier, better educated children. There is huge potential to raise income per head in developing countries, where fewer girls go to school than boys. More than two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are women.
Of course, it’s easiest to make the argument about money, about economic prosperity, but the loss of talent due to “traditional” treatment of women impacts us in so many ways, including robbing us of new perspectives:
Making better use of women’s skills is not just a matter of fairness. Plenty of studies suggest that it is good for business, too. Women account for only 7% of directors on the world’s corporate boards–15% in America, but less than 1% in Japan. Yet a study by Catalyst, a consultancy, found that American companies with more women in senior management jobs earned a higher return on equity than those with fewer women at the top. This might be because mixed teams of men and women are better than single-sex groups at solving problems and spotting external threats. Studies have also suggested that women are often better than men at building teams and communicating.
Those fresh perspectives could as easily contribute in government, in academia and in the arts. This is not to say that women are less prone to error than men, or that their point-of-view is superior to men. If we accept that reason is our greatest tool for our survival, that an open and frank exchange of views is the best way to find error and determine the best course of action, it is clear that more voices, more minds might help us consider ALL of our possible courses of action.
It is a serious problem that a frightening number of people would rather proceed into the future grasping to the security blanket of tradition, to their particular faith. We are seeing a resurgence of magical thinking, that there is some “right” or “good” way of doing things that we can determine through some version of prayer or divination. The rights’ counterattack against feminism is of a piece with their assaults on science, on rational debate, on the entire idea that our government and way of life are best served when we find solutions in a secular civic marketplace of ideas. They tell the lie that a secular meeting place between people of different faiths and beliefs finding common ground is somehow “discriminating” against them. The right refuses to accept that faith, in a multicultural, multiethnic and diverse country, needs to inform their personal decisions, that they can let it inform the suggestions they make, but that it isn’t acceptable for them to impose their traditions on others.
This is a battle over whether or not this country will actually inhabit a future it creates for itself, or will we allow a frightened, insular, angry and superstitious minority drag us back into the dark ages. This is not to say that women and men shouldn’t have the opportunity to choose a more “traditional” relationship, but it is imperative that they NOT impose it one women and girls who choose other paths.
Modernity depends upon the full participation of women. With all of the challenges we face: global warming, peak oil, a declining manufacturing economy and disappearing jobs, we must open up our commonweal to all who might have solutions and observations to offer. We’ve come too far to shove women back into the role of servant.
