To Me.
Tough, savvy, sassy, admirable.
If I were inclined to put people on pedestals, all those feminists that made their way into my consciousness when I was young would have been on one. The writers, intellectuals, artists, politicians, and athletes. Such a long list of women that I admired for their personal accomplishments but admired more for their efforts to pull up all women to something near equal status in life and work.
You were part of our lives even if we weren’t actually a part of yours.
Many had been long gone before we were born. But their words remained fresh and still resonated with women trying to make their way throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Too many to list — Mary Wollenstonecraft, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and all the feminists at the Seneca Falls Convention.
Many from those that spoke to us in the flesh are now also no longer with us. Simone de Beauvior, Betty Friedan, Molly Ivins, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm.
“When I ran for the Congress, when I ran for president, I met more discrimination as a woman than for being black. Men are men.”
It was a journey — not so much to “feel” equal becuase many of us had always “felt” equal — to discover all the ways that we weren’t equal in law, education, society, and our own lives. The first year of “MS” magazine was a monthly feast of “clicks” for me. Gloria Steinem was high on my list of admirable women. I had her back whenever I encountered anyone that denigrated her in any way. How we giggled over:
“A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,”
Even if Steinem didn’t coin it, she brought it to our attention. Even if we, at least heterosexual women, knew it wasn’t true. Small and ordinary women that fully embraced feminism were still “less than” those like us that had a man. More so if the man were financially successful and his woman had the freedom to choose employment or anything else. Even women that were the primary breadwinners for their families and had a man lorded that over a woman without a man of her own.
A favorite line of mine from those early days was What’s the difference between Pat Nixon and a welfare mother? One man! It was an exaggeration because Pat Nixon had made her own way through college in the 1930s and was a high school teacher before she married and during WWII worked in DC for the Office of Price Administration. Compared to many women of her generation she was ahead of her time up to that point when she and women simiilar to her retreated into real life versions of June Cleaver. Some like Betty Friedan broke out of that. Some like Helen Gurley Brown never lapsed into it, but “Cosmo” readers straddled the line between the “June Cleavers” and feminism, mostly internalizing the good and easy bits and not at all comfortable even self-identifying as feminists.
With the “Hyde Amenment” came a small rent in feminist class divisions. The failure to get the ERA ratified put a stop to further legislative gains and increased defensive moves to preserve what had been gained. The fights continued on in courtrooms, boardrooms, media (including movies), and individuals plowing forward in their own small and sometimes large ways.
Then along came Bill and Hill. Elite feminists swooned over both. Non-elites were less impressed, but not hostile and easily accepted and respected them. But how did feminists go from advocating for the rights on all women not to be abused and discriminated against in the workplace, schools, courtrooms, and in our homes to being consumed with defending the actions of two people under Republican attacks when many of those actions weren’t defensible at all? How different really was Hillary Clinton from Pat Nixon through their years as First Lady? Or for that matter from Nancy Reagan?
A comment of mine from a few days ago that’s appropriate here:
Bill Clinton dispensed with any potential Willie Horton attack by rushing home to AR to sign the death warrant for Ricky Ray Rector and liberals/progressive set aside their principles in favor of political expediency.
How many pieces of feminists’ soul were lopped off in favor of political expediency for the political and personsal benefit and fortunes of two people? Sister Souljah, (the brilliant) Lani Guinier, (the wise) Dr. Joycelyn Elders, (the dedicated) Marion Wright Edelman. (As Billmon said — “Bill Clinton as the first black President was the dumbest thing Maya Angelou ever said.”)
Fifty odd years on from the beginnings of the Second Wave of Feminism and the only viable female Presidential candidate that feminists champion is the wife of a former President whose entire political career (and big money donor rolodex) was gifted to her? This is really the best we can do? A woman that when politically expedient was quick to throw poor women and children, gays and lesbians, and a few countries under the bus? That like Paul Krugman has just learned that income and wealth inequality might be a problem for the US economy after decades of promoting public policies that facilitated income/wealth inequality? Did I miss that part where Maggie Thatcher was honored and praised as a feminist icon?
Worker class and the pink collar portion of the salary class men and women have been living it. That didn’t escape the notice of feminists, both men and women, that hold true feminsist values. One of those troopers has been Barbara Ehrenrieich who while among the feminist elites hasn’t been seduced by the Clintons. She’s not alone but is hardly in the fold of the elite feminists today who are falling all over themselves in their support of Hillary for President, her record on authentic feminist political policies be damned.
For ever so long, I dismissed and denied the reality over the decades that feminism in the US morphed into a bourgeoise, and mostly white, movement for the personal advancement of upper middle class women. If not by birth, then by virtue of an elite education or marriage or good fortune (often accompanied by hard work or talent, but most women work hard) in professional pursuits. The most successful of all and by her own grit and determination is Oprah Winfrey. She felt a kinship with Barack Obama back in 2007 and her endorsement was helpful to his candidacy. This time she’s remaining silent. Wouldn’t presume even to speculate as to her reasons for not jumping on the “Ready for Hillary” bandwagon. Merely note that she’s “not ready” and she’s smart, savvy, and principled.
If I had been a person inclined to put people on pedestals, not many of those once ever so wonderful feminists that would have been on one wouldn’t have since fallen off. Mark Ruffalo is a clearer-sighted and better feminist today than …*
Splat: Ms. Steinem today
“Women are more for [Clinton] than men are…First of all, women get more radical as we get older, because we experience…Not to over-generalize, but…Men tend to get more conservative because they gain power as they age, women get more radical because they lose power as they age.
And, when you’re young, you’re thinking, where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie…”
Uh, Ms. Steinem not only do you not appear to have become more radical over the decades, but you appear to be stuck in a 1992 upper middle class and elite bubble. Clueless as to the major economic changes of working class men since the heyday of Ms. Magazine. The men young working class women are most likely to form lifelong partnerships with. A two-income low wage household with low job and economic security and often dependent on predatory lenders to make it to payday. it’s even worse for African-Americans and Latinos.
It’s not that young women today are politically dumb and auctioning off their votes to “boys” for sex, they loathe the arrogant and well-off ’60s-’70s feminists. And that loathing didn’t start this year or even in 2008. But way back in the 1980s when such feminists seemed to them as ancient and/or clueless as Nancy Reagan.
Maybe I can be an honorary grandmother for the girls chasing BernieBros. Sounds like the more lively and fun group to hang with.
*BTW, Molly Ivins let is be known well enough that if she were with us today that she’d be hanging out with Ruffalo and not “the sisters.”