It took 72 years after the official start of the women’s
movement for women to get the vote. 72 years. For 72 years groups of women came
together to fight for the rights of one another. Women were threatened, beaten,
arrested, jailed, and force fed through hunger strikes, but they stuck
together. It was important. They were women – sisters in a cause – and they
fought to ensure those of us now would have rights that would make us equal
citizens. We all attach the suffrage movement with the right to vote but, they
were fighting for so much more than just a chance to join in at the polls. They
saw the need for equal wages, better education and fair career opportunities
for women. To wax poetic, they wanted to be able to live out their own dreams. And
while the individual members of the movement changed through time, the heart of the
movement remained the same for 72 years until they succeeded in gaining the
vote.
We still had a long way to go after that. While we could
vote, and some opportunities improved, I don’t know anyone who would say that
women in 1920 suddenly became men’s equals. There was still plenty to fight for
and women did indeed continue the fight. Women started running for
office where they could, they went on to higher education, they went to work. Still,
by 1960 women were only making 62 cents for every dollar made by a man in an
equal position, prompting women to come together again for the Equal Pay Act in
1963. On a side note; women in the state of Utah made 72 cents for every dollar
made by a man in an equal position in 2012 which was also the national average
in 1992. In Louisiana it was 62 cents last year, so I would say we still have
some fighting to do on this one. My point is that the women of that time were again
coming together to try to make things better for one another.
They found more to fight for in the 70’s. Big issues like
Roe v. Wade and little issues like whether or not public schools could require
girls to wear dresses. It’s sad to me that a girls right to wear pants had to
be decided by a court and even that didn’t happen until 1972. Did you know part
of this fight in the 70’s also gave us the right to have a credit card? No one
was required to give credit to women until 1974. Before that date the credit
companies assumed if a woman needed a line of credit either her husband or her
father would get it for her. No need to worry our pretty little heads over
confusing things like credit accounts. Even though we could go to work, until
1978 you could be fired for getting pregnant and until 1977 the courts did not
recognize sexual harassment as a real thing. Ladies – it was 1985 before all
states recognized the need to grant “no fault” divorces so that women didn’t
have to get permission from their husbands to get divorced. It wasn’t until 1993 that all 50 states recognized
marital rape as a crime. I had almost graduated high school by then. Again,
these were issues women came together to fight for.
I’m afraid that the women in my generation and younger have
stopped fighting for one another and seem to be spending a lot more time
fighting with one another. As women,
there are things we face throughout life that our male counterparts do not and
one would hope that these would bring us closer together as a diverse community
of sisters. Instead, we keep finding ways to remain in the high school-esque world
of “Us” and “Them”. Unfortunately, the “Them” is other women. We pick each
other apart for everything from body size and clothing style, to mommyhood and
work-life; the very things the suffragists of the 1900’s suffered through police
beatings to ensure we would be able to strive for. Seriously, read some words
from Alice Paul. It breaks my heart that we use the rights those women suffered
for as cause to divide ourselves now. We should be working to see how much
further we could take ourselves, our families, and our communities, if we came
together again as sisters.
Part of me blames the World Wide Web for the divisive
attitudes these days. We are able not only to share our opinions but we can
judge and disparage and ridicule strangers we don’t agree with, all under the
anonymity of a cute screen name. We separate ourselves into cliques: The Breast
Feeding Moms, The Working Moms, The Stay at Home Moms, The Organic Moms, The Fast
Food Moms, The Non-Moms, Married Women, Single Women, and at the end of the day
we forget that one delightful thread we all have in common. We are all women.
We are all picking our way through the world and each of us will experience
joys and hardships and embarrassing moments, and thanks to some brave women
that started a movement in 1848, we can do it all wearing our favorite jeans.
We should be honoring them by sharing these experiences with one another,
rather than judging how well each of us pulls it off. Let’s talk it out…
The first time I faced true divisiveness that put me in a Me
and Them situation was at the age of 19. I was pregnant and stubborn; not
because I was preggers but because I’ve always been hardheaded, and I was going
to bottle feed my kid. For me the discussion ended there and immediately put me
against “them”. There was more than one in the “them” camp that had to make
sure I knew I was making the wrong choice. It was not ever presented that
breast feeding was a “better” choice, just the only right choice and I wasn’t
prone to agree. I had been bottle fed and not only survived but am completely
attached to my mother, so none of the arguments they presented to me held much
water. And the approach of attacking with “you’re doing it wrong” doesn’t
usually get people far with me either.
This would be the first issue I would say – as women – we
can back up a bit about. Women have been breast feeding since the beginning of
time. I don’t think anyone alive doesn’t understand that reality. I truly
applaud women who breast feed their children as I think most women do. I have
no problem with women breast feeding in public or breast feeding when their
kids are old enough to ask for it, the only problem I had was for myself. I
couldn’t do it. I don’t blame it on age or maturity because I can say with all
certainty that if I were pregnant right now the bottle would be my best
friend and my kid would get a bottle too. I can also say that my kid grew up
healthy and well fed and suffered no ill effects from being fed Similac or rice
cereal or the Earl Grey tea that he loved so much in his Playtex "bah".
There is no need for us to stand in different camps on this
issue. Instead, all women with new babies to feed need to be supported with
encouragement and understanding, regardless of how they chose to feed those new
babies. They have new babies! Isn’t there already enough for them to worry
about without being attacked for deciding the bottle is what works for them? Also
all women should support the idea that those breast feeding mommies should not
have to shuffle into a bathroom stall so that their new little one can have
supper. That’s a toilet! Bottom line is that women should not be shamed for
feeding their child whether it’s with their body or with a bottle and they
shouldn’t be forced into the restaurant bathroom if their choice happens to be
the first one listed. We should be able to agree to this, right?
Next!
In what some consider the good ol’ days, women were expected
to stay home and take care of their children. It was just the assumption of all
that all women wanted to be mothers and therefore, that would be enough for
them. Part of the women’s movement was to get society to recognize that women
were more than just mothers. Women were intelligent and curious creatures. The
idea of women only being caretakers – too feeble minded to function outside of
the home – was something they wanted to see abolished. There is so much to life
and so much to being a woman that motherhood does not need to be the only thing
that defines us all. For reasons as varied as our current hairstyles, there are
women in our world who don’t want to tackle motherhood and all that comes with
it. Their choice is decried by some as selfish, their lives are classified as
“unfulfilled” and these admonishments are being handed out by other women.
There is a sadder side to the world of women without
children. Some women, for medical reasons completely out of their control,
cannot have children. When I found out I was infertile years after I had my one and only biological
child, the news was sad but a little less sad because we had no real intention
of having any more kids. I can’t imagine what my heartache would have been had
this news come before having my son. I did always want kids, as many women
in this exact position did. I have watched a truly dear friend come to terms
with this news; a friend who did not set out to be in the childless camp, and
have been repeatedly outraged by some of the comments she’s had to deflect. I
can tell you that as much as the questions of “When are you going to have
kids?” and “You’re going to regret this decision later on” might annoy a woman who
has made the choice; they are straight up painful for the woman who found
herself in this group by chance.
It is time to embrace the fact that some women will enjoy a
life that doesn’t include poopy diapers and the teen years. It doesn’t change
their womanhood status, it doesn't make them less womanly, it doesn't make them
selfish and it certainly doesn’t mean they hate children. It only means she
doesn’t see kids as part of her life
or that her biology made the choice for her. So, here’s my proposal on this one; “When are
you going to have kids?” should fall right in the taboo line with “When are you
due?”. We all know not to ask that one, right? Just group them together. There
are few subjects as personal as the decision of whether or not to become a
mother, so let’s just agree to tread lightly here, and offer privacy and
respect.
While we’re talking about mommyhood, let’s jump right to the
big one. The one that makes my blood boil each and every time I see it in a
headline. The one that since the inception of the “blogoshphere” has been in
the forefront of internet discussions on a daily basis. This one subject has
created a divide online and in the real world that is so big it can only be
fixed if the comparison game is stopped all-together. The ridiculous argument
I’m speaking of is working mom vs. stay at home mom. Growing up I had both – my
mom was at home when we were little and worked as we got older. In my own life,
while a young single mom and today as a married mom with teens, I have always
worked. I can say I don’t remember the debate over who was better being so
popular in years past. Now, it’s hard to click through the internet without
coming across a few articles a day focused on the fight. Who has it better? Who
does more work? Who ends up with better kids? Really? This is the level we want
to bring ourselves to? This is what Alice Paul had raw eggs poured through her
nose for?
Here’s the bottom line ladies, being a mom is fucking hard.
There is absolutely no other way to put it. It doesn’t matter if you have perfectly
behaved angels or if you’ll admit that “Junior” can be a little asshole
sometimes, being a mom is hard. You get through the morning sickness and the
stretch-marks and labor pains and delivery and end up with a tiny human being.
That tiny human being is completely defenseless and needy and stays that way
for years. And for years, you don’t sleep, you worry, you glow with pride, you
laugh, you cry, you play and if you’re anything like me, occasionally you
scream. Every mother has had that breathtaking moment when it sinks it that the
survival of another human being is resting on your shoulders. And not just
their survival either. We are responsible for everything from making sure they
know how to use a toilet and hold a fork, to making sure they know how to
accept a date and pick out flowers for a girl. There are so many lessons that
you have to cram into their heads before someone on the outside does, that
motherhood all by itself is a grueling, never-ending job.
In today’s world, women have decided that that alone isn’t
enough stress. Oh no. Besides worrying about the science projects and dirty
clothes piles that exist in every one of our homes, now we must also worry
about who is doing it “better” and there is just no reason to add motherhood to
our list of competitive sports. There has been this line drawn in the sand
between mothers who work and mothers who don’t and it’s time to kick the dirt
over that line for good. I can’t – because I’m a realist and a skeptic by
nature – say that ALL moms are good moms. Sadly, not every mom is a good mom but,
the actions that make them bad moms have nothing to do with whether they
work outside of the home or if they are home with the kiddies all day every day.
The two biggest arguments in the WM vs. SAHM debate are
who’s kids are better off and who works harder so let’s dispel both arguments
together. For every study you can find and site that says kids do better when
they are home with mom 24/7, someone can find a study that sites the benefits
of early socialization in children when parents work away from home. I have
friends who are great stay at home moms and I have friends who are great
working moms. We all know people in both camps. And while the stay at home mom
idea was never a real thought for me, I never thought of criticizing those who
did it in my younger mom years. I didn’t get passionate about the debate until
I started tripping over it on a regular basis. My first reaction was to yell
and fight online. I started jumping to point out the cases of the most
miserable SAHM I was too familiar with as an example for all, while women on
the other side all but accused working moms of neglect. The rate of speed that
the claws come out in some of those “discussion” boards can be frightening if
you haven’t seen it for yourself. (Honestly, don’t look. They’re scary.)
If we all step back we should be able to see how ridiculous
the argument is to begin with. A mom is a mom is a mom. We all have the
responsibility of little humans resting on our heads and we’re all making our
way through what it takes to see those tiny humans to adulthood, where we get
to worry about them in a different degree and for different reasons. We all
have the science projects, the dirty laundry, the menu planning and grocery
shopping, counseling and refereeing that comes along with being a mother. Some
of us do this with the help of a partner; some of us do this on our own. Some
of us make this our “career” and some of us work in addition to mom duty. Some
who work outside of the home do so by choice, some by necessity and the same
can be said about those at home, but the hard fact at the end of the day is
that we are all moms. We all understand how hard that job is, so why is it we
want to tear another mom down when really what we need is encouragement,
applause, and the occasional offer of a cocktail?
I hate that the finger pointing here is coming
from other women. Instead of championing for a woman’s right to stay home or go to work, criticism is thrown out
from both sides. This was one of the biggest fights those brave women who came
before us took on. They fought for our right to make the choice of stepping out
of the home or staying in, our own choice. Maybe that is part of the problem? The
protests of 1913 happened so long ago, and the freedoms we have now have always
been a part of our lives. We don’t remember when it wasn’t a choice to wear
pants to school. We don’t remember when women weren’t considered sensible
enough for higher education, or (gasp!) a credit card. It’s time to pick back up
with the attitude of the women of our past. It’s time to start championing for
womanhood and all that comes with it. We need to be celebrating with one
another the choices we have in front of us and what it now means to be a woman.
We can look around and see what they were able to accomplish, imagine what we
could do today if we came together again.