I just sat down to write this after having listened to Patricia Ireland, the president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), speak for an hour and thirty minutes on the current issues and challenges affecting women's rights, and I can honestly say that I feel one thing right now: Frustration.
No, not at men in general, or at my father, or at whomever it is that feminists are stereotyped to hate - I am frustrated and angry at history, The System, ignorance, apathy, and at those who have played a part in the relegation of women to second class citizens. I know, I know - perhaps there are many of you out there (including fellow women) who think it's lame and obnoxious to say that, in 2001, women are still second class.
I was shocked to discover that it's true.
Then again, maybe I should stay better updated when it comes to the news, since CNN obviously isn't cutting it.
Many of us might have heard the recent update on the wage gap (women in general now make 72 cents for every dollar made by men - as opposed to our previous 75 cents. And if you want to get specific, African-American women make only 52 cents for each of those dollars). Maybe those in ROTC know that a woman in the military can't use military hospitals for an abortion unless her life is at risk, even if she pays for the procedure out-of-pocket. And I'm sure that some of us have noticed a disturbing trend in the White House, where President Bush has not only quietly dismissed the White House Office of Women's Initiatives and Outreach (an office of significant symbolic and organizational value started under the Clinton administration), but he is also trying to scale back federal funding to institutions that provide information on abortion.
But that's just the beginning.
Did you know, for example, that in South Carolina, the state legislature is considering cutting funding for family planning for unwed couples? Or what about the fact that, despite having been successfully used in Europe for 12 years (and by hundreds of thousands of women worldwide), officials in the US are going to reopen inquiries on the "safety of RU-486," a noninvasive, early stage abortion pill. Has anyone even heard a peep about the government checking into the reports of blindness and heart failure associated with Viagra? And I had no clue that, not only are female federal employees not insured for abortions, but that there is consideration of removing birth control from their insurance as well! And after hearing all of this, I was so stunned that I missed where it was in the US that there were state bills to deny any woman under age 18 birth control without her parents' explicit consent. And while we're talking about laws, did you know it is rumored that Sandra Day O'Connor will soon be stepping down as Supreme Court Justice, and that she has a tradition of being the swing pro-choice vote in all of those narrow 5-4 court decisions on women's reproductive rights?
Walking into Ireland's lecture, I was already a feminist. That is, I already believed that women should be treated equally and with equal respect and protection under the law - no more, no less. And while I have yet to resolve for myself all of the issues fundamental to abortion, I realized that, quite frankly, I would at least like it to be my choice whether I have one or not. I am old enough and intelligent enough to come to my own decisions regarding my health and future, and it's insulting to think that the government or anybody else feels enfranchised to infringe on that ability.
But abortion isn't really the end all and be all of this message. Abortion, Ireland made me realize, is just one symbolic issue - and a very volatile one at that - in a much larger, quieter political war. If women lose this battle under the artillery of the Bush administration, we will open ourselves up to lose much, much more. As I've shown above, the battle lines are many and sometimes subtly drawn. You don't hear about them until they affect you, and believe me, I don't want to end up where Patricia Ireland began - going to an OB/GYN in the 1960s as an engaged woman (with her mother in tow for legitimacy, no less) to ask for contraception only to have the doctor tell her to "come back after the ceremony" (when Ireland was getting married, birth control was actually illegal for unwed women in many states).
I want the freedom to choose. I want to know that I can be valued equally for my hard work and professional abilities. I want to be able (with input from a significant other) to make my own decisions about whether and when to have a family, and I don't want to be endangered or targeted or discriminated against for that decision. Listening to Ireland tonight, I realized that movements of any kind are never over. You can never retire. Because there will always be a George W. Bush, or a senator, or a judge, or a neighbor who, for some reason or another, will not accept change. There will always be those who will feel threatened by others' acquisition of equality and power, those who will do their utmost to take away rights that we have become complacent about defending.
Please, if you feel any frustration or anger about these current challenges to women's rights, please, please, please don't let it fester unvoiced. Send a letter to a congressman, participate in a rally, become an activist in whatever way or capacity works for you. Because if we don't start standing back up for ourselves, I fear we might lose more than we ever thought we could. And with someone like Bush in the White House, that could happen sooner than we expect.
Emily Sporl is a senior majoring in international relations.
