International Women's Day: Women - the Forgotten 51 Percent Minority

This picture from the 1970s, reprinted in a March 8, 2009 story in the New York Times, is heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking  because even though such a picture today would, I fervently hope, show women more diverse in age and rage, it would be easy enough to find women - millions of them - who came out of the 2008 Presidential election cycle realizing that women are the forgotten majority in this country.

Women are the people who can be called anything for supporting another women's bid for higher office; indeed a woman governor who runs for vice-president can publicly be called a c*nt and absolutely no member of the punditry nor any politician in high office of either party denounces this. Imagine if photos of young people wearing shirts that called our current President a n*gger had circulated widely during the last election. The media and politicians would have been absolutely up in arms. They would have been right to have been, too. But what many women are only realizing now, after surviving the dashed hopes of seeing Hillary Rodham Clinton given a fair shot at the nomination in Denver (instead the Democratic Party held a rigged process where pledged delegates were pressured to change their votes for the first ballot and superdelegates were pressured, starting in June, to act as if they had already voted for a candidate to lead the Democratic ticket) is that the entire political and cultural situation in this country not is stacked against them, but that almost no progress in the fight for political and economic equality has been made since the "Women's Liberation" movement of the early 1970s. The wretched and persistent wage gap persists; no Equal Rights Amendment has been added to our constitution; and despite the de jure legality of abortion, women's reproductive rights generally cannot be vindicated by actual individual women, at least not without hardship.

Our current President had his inauguration blessed by a pastor who believes in "wifely submission" and has retained as his chief speechwriter a man who blithely posed for a picture depicting himself metaphorically groping the most powerful person in the president's own Senate - a person who happens to be a woman, Secretary of State Clinton. This same President has ignored calls for a Presidential Commission on Women modeled on John F. Kennedy's 1961 - 1961! - Commission on Women; and has displayed zero interest in creating an even stronger institution, one that would be on par with the President's Advisory Boards on Intelligence (spying) and Economic Recovery.

The other day I was reading and listening to Mario Cuomo's address to the 1984 Democratic Convention. Well into a classic speech, Cuomo delivers this message:

We speak for women who are indignant that this nation refuses to etch into its governmental commandments the simple rule "thou shalt not sin against equality," a rule so simple -- I was going to say, and I perhaps dare not but I will. It's a commandment so simple it can be spelled in three letters: E.R.A.

In 1984, the Democratic hall went wild when Cuomo added this apparent ad lib. The crowd chanted over and over E - R - A.

Thou shalt not sin aginst equality, thou shall pass and ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Can you imagine a keynote speaker from either major political party today uttering these words at its presidential nominating convention?

The closest we came in 2008 was Hillary Rodham Clinton's convention speech, which included this declaration:

And I know what that can mean for every man, woman, and child in America. I’m a United States Senator because in 1848 a group of courageous women and a few brave men gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, many traveling for days and nights, to participate in the first convention on women’s rights in our history.

And so dawned a struggle for the right to vote that would last 72 years, handed down by mother to daughter to granddaughter – and a few sons and grandsons along the way.

These women and men looked in-to their daughters’ eyes, imagined a fairer and freer world, and found the strength to fight. To rally and picket. To endure ridicule and harassment. To brave violence and jail.

And after so many decades – 88 years ago on this very day – the 19th amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote would be forever enshrined in our Constitution.

My mother was born before women could vote. But in this election my daughter got to vote for her mother for President.

This is the story of America. Of women and men who defy the odds and never give up.

How do we give this country back to them?

By following the example of a brave New Yorker , a woman who risked her life to shepherd slaves along the Underground Railroad.

And on that path to freedom, Harriett Tubman had one piece of advice.

If you hear the dogs, keep going.

If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.

If they're shouting after you, keep going.

Don't ever stop. Keep going. (emphasis added)

Although the convention applauded wildly it should be noted that in 20 years the Democratic Party went from demanding the Equal Rights Amendment to reminding women that when they hear the dogs, they must keep going.

Many women and women understand that women's rights are human rights and human rights are women's rights. They demonstrate this knowledge in this country and around the world as they keep going. Some make small contributions, financial and otherwise, to new organizations like 51 percent (disclosure: the author of this post is the president of 51 percent), WomenCount, and The New Agenda - organizations formed in direct response to the unresponsiveness of the Democratic Party to American women's dreams and hopes for their emancipation and autonomy. In other countries, too, women take action on the local level. A friend from Europe decided that she would mark International Women's Day (a holiday not recognized in the U.S.) by protesting a local piece of artwork that, however unwittingly, depicts a woman in a subordinate and demeaned posture compared to her male coworkers (the art is meant to celebrate rice harvesting). Here is the artwork as it looks on an ordinary day:

 But on International Women's Day, the woman sweeping wore a placard that, translated, read:

"I feel enslaved in this humiliating posture next to the two strapping men standing up. I demand equality."

Dones endavant! (Translation: "Put women forward!")

I believe that 2008 will be remembered not as a year of defeat for women, but as year of galvanization. Despite the wretched economic uncertainty that plagues men and women today, those who want to see the majority-minority - women of the world - put forward, are banding together and one placard or one donation or one blog post at a time these men and women realize that we must renew the fight against oppression and for emancipation of women everywhere.

To read Secretary of State Clinton's 2009 International Women's Day statement on the importance of advancing the interests of women throughout the world, go here.

Comments

[Cindy]

Heidi Li,
Here in my little Texas town, a group of us (about 75) celebrated Women's Day with marching, singing and proclaiming. It was wonderful!
We had display tables at the recreation center, so I printed out some of the material you so graciously posted and urged us to download: specifically, Eleanor Roosevelt and Emily Roebling. I told the women about your 51% webpage. None of them knew who you were, nor did they know about "51%" but were thrilled and impressed about/with you!
Many many thanks for your unwavering attempt to see that women are elevated to their rightful place in this society.
You are such a treasure for the women's movement, as well as an inspiration!
Thank you, Heidi Li.

[lililam]

Gosh, that convention speech was such a tremendously bittersweet address. Showing us how far we had come, yet not quite far enough. I was just re-reading the Tubman quote elsewhere earlier, and I fear that it is apropos for many, women and men alike, at this very uprooting time in our country's history. You use it as a very graphic inference to what many of us experience and have experienced as women, and rightfully so, and I believe Hillary also used it as a call for vigilance and fortitude in any fight for advancement toward our "God given potential". It has been over a year now that our eyes were opened to the inequity of this past election cycle. Vigilance and tenacity are needed for sure. And how sad that we don't recognize Women's Day! I would like a Mimosa, for one.

[goldfinch]

We should all become more active and creative. Kudus to your friend in Europe.

[Mirlo]

I agree with you that the year 2008 is a year of awakening for equality.

Reading about the hardships of the forefighters for equal rights, or hearing from women having thrown acid in their faces because they want to go to school etc., always makes me wonder: how much are we willing to endure? Yes, I have been ridiculed and called all kind of things, but would I risk to go to jail, or bear the consequences of not paying my income tax because I disagree strongly with the spending of my Government?

What are our tools today and how are we using them to advance equal rights? How do we find the balance between wanting change now and dealing with reality?

Thank you, Heidi, for your contribution with this blog and 51 percent, which have been and will be an incentive for my actions.

[Cindy]

Heidi Li,
Today I rec'd this from my cousin, about how Zurich was celebrating IWD. She married a Swiss man and has lived and raised a family there for over 30 years. I thought you might be interested since you shared that wonderful protest by your European friend.
Here's her e-mail:
"There were lots and lots of demos yesterday but I had to work. Tomorrow on March 10th I am taking part in a “Equal pay for equal work” action. We will be talking to people on the street and handing out red shopping bags. Women in Switzerland earn on the average 19% less than men. This means that women would have to work 49 days longer than men to earn the same amount of money, ie. January 1st to March 10th is 49 work days. There will be action groups all over the country tomorrow."

[SFIndie]

What I find sad is that the "younger" generation of women (and yes, I'm generalizing) does NOT seem to realize the level of misogyny exhibited during this past election, nor do they realize they are a part of a majority minority or how that affects their lives. Four nieces, ages 37, 35, 21, 21, all avid Obama fans who bought into the Hillary-and-Sarah-hate. None of them will acknowledge the misogyny that was exhibited this past election. None of them will acknowledge that they are a part of a majority minority. Women I know through work, between the age of 35 - 42, are the same. I feel like I'm fighting not only for my rights (still!) but for the rights of young people who don't even understand the limitations that have been imposed upon them. And yet, I will keep fighting, in whatever way I can. Thank you, Heidi, for being the catalyst for so many of us, for giving us a voice and a place to gather.

(by the way, I tried to leave a comment at your City Tavern post, but it looks like comments are turned off!)