by Elliott Adams, former President of Veterans For Peace
Recent political events have put issues on the table, issues we were all glad not to confront. Now that they are on the table we must either fix what we think is wrong or watch it become OK and the social norm. One of those issues is how we treat women. Some call it disrespectful of woman, some call it abuse of woman, some call it misogyny, some call it objectification of women, some call it a war on woman, but it does not matter what name is used it is what our mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives are living with.
We see in the news that assaults on woman across the country, verbal, physical, and sexual are increasing. Ask yourself, is that OK?
Economically women's median wage is 79.6 cents to a dollar for men, for the same job, same experience, and same education. Certainly, we are making strides on this. But at the current rate equality will not be reached until 2059! Look at that another way – if your 20-year-old daughter is entering the job market now she will not get equal pay to her male coworkers until she is 63! Is that what you think is right?
What is this about a “glass ceiling?” It is such a common practice to deny women prestigious and well paid jobs that we have a name for it. Don't you think this practice and the term for it should have been relegated to the scrap pile of failed attitudes of history?
Inequality in politics is also clear - only 22 out of 100 Senators are women and 19.3% of the US House of Representative are women. At the state level 23% of state elected officials are female. Remember women are 50.9% of US population. After almost 60 Presidential elections, that would 120 Presidential candidates we have only had one female on a major party ticket. Is this the best way to govern our country?
Domestic violence scars the lives of one out of 3 women. Do you think that is OK?
We, men and women, must ask ourselves if we think this is OK. Circumstances beyond our control have changed our society and our options. We can no longer avoid this issue. If your answer is no I don't think this is right, then you must act to change it. The challenge we are faced with now is that if we do not work to oppose what we think is wrong we are actually endorsing it.
We all know women have a right to equality and that our society does not provide that. The recent election cycle changed the conversation - it turned time back to again allowing openly voiced disrespect and oppression of woman. It may be worth looking at history to see what turning back might look like.
Mississippi enacted the first law in the US which allowed a married woman to own property in her own name, but she could not manage it or sell it without her husband's agreement (1839).
In 1848 New York was one of the first states to provide married woman the right to control the wages they earned and own property in their name. By contrast the following year the Tennessee legislature stated that "married women lack independent souls and thus should not be allowed to own property."
In the Congressional vote on the 1866 Civil Rights Act (assuring all people, particularly African-Americans, “the same right that a white citizen has to make and enforce contracts, sue and be sued, give evidence in court, and inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property”) some Congressmen were going to vote against it because they worried it could give those rights to their wives.
It was not until the 1900s that every state provided substantial property ownership to married women.
Historically, around the world, uncontrolled pregnancy has been a subtle mechanism of control over women. Simple information about birth control was legally defined as obscene and therefore could not be mentioned publicly in the US until a Supreme Court ruling in 1936. And contraceptives were not legally available even to married couples in all states until 1965.
We scoff at burkas as inhumane and unequal, yet in the same way in our society we set standards for “proper” underwear for women, but not men. We also have different exposure laws for woman than for men, so much so that in many places a mother is not permitted to feed her baby in public.
Well into the 20th century progressive legislation for woman was “protective.” Rather than protecting equality it claimed women needed special work place accommodations and protections which gave employees justification to avoid hiring women altogether or to pay them less than men.
The role of US women in 1848 can be seen in the statement of Woman's Seneca Fall Conference, which partly stated “The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpation on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.” It went on to delineate points a few of which are:
“He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.
He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.
He allows her in church, as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.”
Many of the inequalities and oppressions delineated in 1848 have not been corrected even today.
The Presidential Commission on the Status of Women in 1963 documented discrimination against women in virtually every area of American life.
Even when I was married in the 1960s, a married woman could not hold a credit card in her own name. Her card had to be in the husband's name.
Female doctors make less that male doctors even though new studies show that patients are less likely to die if they have a female doctor.
It is 2017. After efforts starting in the 1920s we still have not put an Equal Rights Amendment in our Constitution.
We have not added the Equal Rights Amendment in our Constitution. Work to pass this amendment started in the 1923 – that is 94 years. Can we do that bit of justice before 100th anniversary of the effort?
It is easy to know that women need and deserve equality and not to be oppressed, but creating that in our society is more difficult. It is not that evil people want to oppress women. That would be easy to find and deal with in ourselves and in others. It is that the tone of our society provides justification and rationalizations that allow the inequality to look normal, to look rational, even to look reasonable. It is partly how we allow ourselves and others to speak. It is partly what jokes we think are morally appropriate. It is not enough to support and believe in equality, we must take time to look at the facts and be sure our society does in fact offer equal opportunities for all. And if not we must actively work to change that.